Meet Joseph Lattanzi | Opera Singer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joseph Lattanzi and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joseph, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta – specifically Mableton. I got interested in music through a great public school elementary music teacher and then went to the Cobb County magnet high school for the Performing Arts. I grew up doing musicals, studying dance and voice, and seeing all the shows around town from The Atlanta Opera, The Atlanta Ballet, The Atlanta Symphony, Alliance Theater, Fox Theater, and others. All my first teachers were part of the rich arts scene locally so I definitely wouldn’t have become a performer without their connection to the cultural tapestry of the city.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Opera is such an interesting art form. It encompasses hundreds of years of history from multiple countries and there are still operas being written today on contemporary subjects and themes. I’m most proud of the range of operas I get to perform. I have performed works in Italian, French, German, Russian, Czech, and English from the 1600s up until now encompassing many time periods and subjects. For example, right now I’m working on a contemporary opera in San Francisco about the life of Steve Jobs but recently at The Atlanta Opera I performed Rossini’s The Barber of Seville which is a great example of a classic, Italian opera. I love singing in Italian, I think because my family has some Italian heritage but I find I just connect to the music and emotions more easily somehow. I get to play all different types of characters from villains and jerks to heroes and lovers.

During the pandemic a few friends and I began an online project (OSSIApresents.com) with the goal of showing people how easily translatable opera is into pop culture terms that we all know and talk about every day. It’s really not an elitist art form, it could easily be a part of everyones life and entertainment consumption – it just isn’t often delivered to people very well and that’s a real shame because there is something here for everyone. We make a lot of YouTube videos, games, interviews, etc. that are inspired by pop culture (we call ours Op Culture, of course, haha) so I’m proud to try to retranslate the enjoyment opera can bring – for a million different reasons – to a modern, digital, online audience.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I travel for work but I live in Atlanta and love it. The best time ever for me involves food and drink and coffee, for sure, so that would be the basis of my plan. No week would be complete without a visit to Chrome Yellow, Academy, and Radio Roasters for coffee. We’d grab some breakfast burritos from Poco Loco, lunches at Staplehouse, Fishmonger, and Star Provisions and dinners at Gigi’s, Little Bear, Talat Market, and if you can catch a Longsnake pop-up you definitely shouldn’t miss that. We’d get some natural wine at Hop City at Krog or beer from Halfway Crooks and sit out in the great Atlanta weather. Maybe I’m just old now, but that’s my idea of a great time – checking out the amazing food scene. The High Museum is wonderful, some beltline time is a must, and we’d definitely go play bar trivia with my dad one night.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My family deserves a shoutout for sure. I was a weird artsy kid and instead of stifling that they went out of their way to celebrate it and to provide me with the opportunities to train and study and perform. They’re my biggest fans and supporters still. Sometimes on not so good days I almost wish they had made me become a doctor or a lawyer or something REAL, haha, but seriously I’m grateful to them for how much love and support the poured and continue to pour into me.

Website: JosephLattanziBaritone.com

Instagram: @Joseph.Lattanzi

Youtube: @josephlattanzi

Image Credits
Patricia Westley, Rafterman Photography,