Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green ready for operatic stardom

This Met Opera season alone has been an impressive run of roles for Ryan Speedo Green, whose bass-baritone voice and charismatic stage presence unfailingly impress critics and audiences

NEW YORK -- He opened the season as kindly Uncle Paul in the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” Next night he was the vagabond monk Varlaam, stopping the show in Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.”

Now he’s back as the fisherman Jake in the Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess” — and for good measure making three appearances as the philosopher Colline in Puccini’s “La Boheme.”

It’s been quite a season for Ryan Speedo Green, whose resounding bass-baritone voice and charismatic stage presence unfailingly impress critics and audiences, even in the supporting roles he’s so far been assigned.

Typical is the appraisal by Zachary Woolfe in The New York Times: “Ryan Speedo Green, the best singer in “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” has equally rich, unforced power as the drunken monk Varlaam.”