American tenor William Burden made his San Francisco Opera debut in 1992 as Count Lerma (Don Carlo) and has returned as Janek (The Makropulos Case), Lindoro (L’Italiana in Algeri), and Tom Rakewell (The Rake’s Progress). Most recently, he created the role of Daniel J. Hill in the Company’s world premiere of Heart of a Soldier. He has appeared in many prestigious opera houses in the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, New York City Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Paris Opera, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, the Paris Thèâtre du Châtelet, Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, Berlin State Opera, Madrid’s Teatro Real, and the Saito Kinen Festival. His many roles include the title roles of Faust, Pelléas et Mélisande, Roméo et Juliette, Béatrice and Bénédict, Candide, and Acis and Galatea; Captain Vere in Billy Budd; Don José in Carmen; Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore; Pylade in Iphigénie en Tauride; Narraboth in Salome; Gerald in Lakmé; Nerone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea; Ferrando in Così fan tutte; and Aschenbach in Death in Venice. He also created the role of Gilbert Griffiths in Picker’s An American Tragedy at the Metropolitan Opera, and the role of Dodge in Daron Hagen’s Amelia at the Seattle Opera. Recent credits include Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor) at Seattle Opera, Peter Quint (The Turn of the Screw) at Los Angeles Opera, Nadir (Les Pêcheurs de Perles) with New Orleans Opera, and Lensky (Eugene Onegin) with Cincinnati Opera. Burden’s recordings include Barber’s Vanessa with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (Chandos, Musique Adorable) and The Songs of Emmanuel Chabrier (Hyperion).