Yonghoon Lee

Yonghoon Lee started his career in his native South Korea and already sang Alfredo, Luigi, Rodolfo, Cavaradossi or Don José there before making his international debut as Don Carlo in Santiago del Chile in 2007, followed by appearances in Frankfurt and Valencia later the same year. Rome, Athens, Liège, the Glyndebourne Touring Company, Genova and the Deutsche Oper Berlin followed in 2008, Amsterdam in 2009. In 2010, he made his debuts at the State Operas in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin, at the Met, in Chicago and at the Glyndebourne Festival. In 2011, he was at the Vienna Staatsoper, at La Scala and in Dresden. 2012, it was the turn of Bologna, and in 2013, he was in Sydney, Zürich and at Covent Garden for the first time. In 2016, he arrived at the San Francisco Opera; in 2017, at the Paris Opéra and the Teatre del Liceu. And he returned to most all of those theaters over and over again, in roles like Turiddu, Manrico, Andrea Chénier, Calaf, Hagenbach, Macduff, Don Alvaro or Dick Johnson.

Having heard him as Don Carlo and as Manrico, I'm flabbergasted at his success. He has a large voice, no doubt, but as far as vocal technique and musicality, he is a desaster: a tinny, blaring voice completely free of any color shades, the tone way too open, hence prone to throatiness, and in terms of musical style, he is more gung-ho than anything else.

Reference 1 and picture source, reference 2, reference 3, reference 4