In opera, concerts and recitals, Stephen Mark Brown is emerging as one of today's leading tenors in the French and Italian repertoires. This past season, he sang with Riccardo Muti for the opening night of La Scala in a new production of Gluck's Iphigenie en Aulide. Other engagements included the role of Paolo Erisso in Rossini's Maometto Secondo with Opera Bilbao; Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with l'Opera de Montreal and Kentucky Opera; the title role in Les contes d'Hoffmann with Palm Beach Opera; and Cavaradossi in Tosca with Opera Theater of St. Louis. Highlights of recent seasons include Rodolfo in La boheme with Minnesota Opera and Boston Lyric Opera; Rodolfo in Luisa Miller with Palm Beach Opera; Faust with l'Opera de Marseille; the Duke in Rigoletto with De Vlaamse Opera; La Damnation de Faust at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples; Werther at Palermo's Teatro Massimo; and his San Francisco Opera debut as Alfredo in La traviata.

Stephen Mark Brown first attracted national attention in 1992 as a winner of the Opera Company of Philadelphia/Luciano Pavarotti Competition. Mr. Pavarotti invited him to appear on national television in "Pavarotti Plus," in which Mr. Brown sang selections from Faust, Mefistofele, and Manon. He made an auspicious debut with New York City Opera as Pinkerton in a major revival of Madama Butterfly (in it's original 1904 version) for which he was named "1993 Debut Artist of the Year." He sang the role of Fernand in the American premiere of Donizetti's La favorite (in it's original French version) with l'Opera Francais de New York, and made his highly-acclaimed debut with the Canadian Opera Company as Alfredo in La traviata. He opened New York City Opera's 1994/95 season in Madama Butterfly, with subsequent performances in La boheme and in an Emmy Award-winning production of La traviata, directed by Renata Scotto, and televised on "Live from Lincoln Center." In the 1995/96 season, Mr. Brown returned to New York City Opera as Foresto in Verdi's Attila. He made his Vancouver Opera debut in the title role of Faust, and appeared as Ruggiero in La rondine with Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

Mr. Brown made an internationally acclaimed European debut in the title role of Don Carlo with the opera companies of Nice and Lyon. His first performances of Werther were followed closely by his debuts with l'Opera de Toulouse and the Teatro Municipal de Santiago. He recently made his Paris Opera debut as the Duke in Rigoletto; sang Cleomene in Le siege de Corinth with the Rossini Festival in Pesaro and Lyon; Americo in Gomes' Lo Schiavo with Opera Brazil; Erisso in Maometto Secondo with l'Opera National du Rhin; Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Teatro Regio di Torino; and has appeared with Boston Lyric Opera in Romeo et Juliette; Opera Bilbao in Faust; a new production of La favorite at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome; and Nemorino in L'Elisir d'amore with the Opera of Cagliari.

Other engagements include Romeo et Juliette with Teatro La Fenice and the Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos in Lisbon; the Spoleto Festival USA in Henze's Der Prinz von Homburg and the Italian Singer in Der Rosenkavalier; Fedora with Palm Beach Opera; Madama Butterfly with the Opera Company of Caracas; Romeo et Juliette with Dallas Opera; Tom Rakewell in The Rake's Progress with l'Opera de Montpellier; Anatol in Vanessa with Opera Festival of New Jersey; Lucia di Lammermoor with Boston Lyric Opera; and the tenor soloist in Verdi's Requiem for the Istanbul State Opera, and in Imola, Italy. Born in Lansing, Michigan, Stephen Mark Brown grew up in Searcy, Arkansas where he received a Bachelor's Degree from Harding University. He continued his studies at Indiana University, where he studied with Nicola Rossi-Lemeni and Virginia Zeani, and received his Master's Degree in 1992.