João Terleira

INTRODUCTION

João Terleira is a Portuguese tenor currently residing in Germany, specializing in the light lyric repertoire, including works by Rossini, Mozart, and light German and French repertoire, as well as bel canto.

He was awarded first prize and the prize for the best interpretation of a foreign-language song at the 10th edition of the National Singing Competition Concurso de Canto Lírico da Fundação Rotária Portuguesa, and is considered one of the rising talents of his generation in Portugal.

Since 2019, João Terleira has been a member of the soloists’ ensemble at Theater & Orchester Heidelberg.

RECENT AND FUTURE ENGAGEMENTS

Highlights of the 2024/25 season include Count Almaviva/Il barbiere di Siviglia and Don Ramiro/La Cenerentola at Theater & Orchester Heidelberg, Cavaliere Belfiore/Il viaggio a Reims in Mönchengladbach, a debut at the renowned Brucknerhaus Linz with Adam Fischer (Mozart’s Requiem) and Markus Poschner (Bruckner’s Te Deum), as well as Jaquino/Fidelio with the Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland.

In the 2025/26 season, he sings Edmondo/Manon Lescaut, Don Ramiro in the revival of La Cenerentola, a tenor role in María de Buenos Aires, Ferrando/Così fan tutte, and the Italian Singer/Der Rosenkavalier at the Theater & Orchester Heidelberg (a.o.). He also returns to the Musikverein Vienna with Händel’s La Resurrezione and makes his debut at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl in Bach’s Johannes-Passion as Evangelist and in the arias. In December, he jumped in as Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola at Staatstheater Darmstadt.

BIOGRAPHY

In 2019, João Terleira made his debut at the renowned Rossini Opera Festival, where he performed the role of Cavaliere Belfiore in Il Viaggio a Reims in a production directed by Emilio Sagi and conducted by Nikolas Nägele. Since then, he has built a successful career focused mainly on German opera houses, appearing at prestigious venues including the Staatstheater Darmstadt, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, Semperoper Dresden, Staatstheater Augsburg, Landestheater Salzburg, Theater Heidelberg, Theater Koblenz, Theater Mönchengladbach/Krefeld, Rokokotheater Schwetzingen, Theater Heilbronn, Erzgebirgisches Theater Annaberg-Buchholz, and the Eutiner Festspiele.

João has also sung at international houses such as Opera Vlaanderen, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Teatro Rossini, Théâtre des Martyrs, and Théâtre Royal de Namur, as well as in renowned concert halls including the Centro Cultural de Belém, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Flagey, Casa da Música, and the Musikverein Vienna.

In the 2023/24 season, João made his debut at the Musikverein Vienna with Mozart’s Requiem and performed roles such as Lenski in Eugene Onegin, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola, and Daniel in R. Keiser’s Nebucadnezzar, alongside his debut in Bach’s Matthäus-Passion.

Education

João completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at ESMAE in Porto under the guidance of Rui Taveira, and was later selected to join the International Opera Academy in Ghent (Belgium) under the artistic direction of Guy Joosten. He is currently studying under Caroline Merz.