Tenor Roy Cornelius Smith earned both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UT (and the doctor of musical arts from the American Conservatory of Music). In 1990 he was one of the 11 winners of the Metropolitan National Opera auditions, which included participants from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. Other awards include the 1999 MacAllister Awards (including the Audience Favorite Award), the 1997 Licia Albanese/Puccini International Voice Competition, the Houston Grand Opera Young Artist Awards, and the Eleanor Steber Award from Baltimore Opera.
He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2000 in Aida and has been heard in 11 different productions, including Ariadne auf Naxos, An American Tragedy, Aida, Tannhäuser, Le Rossignol, Die Frau Ohne Schatten, The Merry Widow, Boris Godunov, Salome, Lucia di Lammermoor, Nabucco, Simon Boccanegra, and Die Meistersinger. His international debut occurred in 1998 at the prestigious Salzburger Festspiele, where he sang as Fatty, the Bookkeeper, in Kurt Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.