Arnold Voketaitis (born May 11, 1930, New Haven, Connecticut) is an American bass-baritone of Lithuanian descent who had an active singing career performing in operas, concerts, and recitals from the late 1950s through the 1990s. He enjoyed a particularly successful partnership with the New York City Opera and has performed with most of the major opera companies in North America. A strong actor, he has a powerful voice with a wide range and fine timbre.
Born in Connecticut, Voketaitis is a graduate of Quinnipiac University. Before his singing career, Voketaitis worked as a cars salesman, jazz trumpeter, and a radio announcer. He studied voice under Elda Ercole, Leila Edward and Kurt Saffir in New York City.
After winning several singing competitions in 1957 along with a Rockefeller Award, Voketaitis made his professional opera debut as Vanuzzi in Richard Strauss's Die schweigsame Frau at the New York City Opera (NYCO) in 1958. The following year he returned to the NYCO to portray "The Stage Manager" in the world premiere of Hugo Weisgall's Six Characters in Search of an Author. Voketaitis remained a regular performer with the NYCO up through 1981, singing such roles as Creon in Igor Stravinsky's Oedipus rex, Giorgio Germont in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata, Olin Blitch in Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, and Theseus in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream among others. He notably sang the role of the Father in the NYC premiere of Douglas Moore’s Carry Nation in 1968.
During the 1960s through the 1990s, Voketaitis appeared as a guest artist at many important opera houses in North America, including the Houston Grand Opera, the Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Opéra de Montréal, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Pittsburgh Opera, San Antonio Opera, and the Vancouver Opera among others. In 1964 he made his debut with the San Francisco Opera as Mephistophélès in Charles Gounod's Faust. In 1965 he sang Don Magnifico with the Metropolitan Opera National touring company. He sang regularly with the Lyric Opera of Chicago between 1968 and 1973, portraying such roles as Bonze (Le rossignol and Madama Butterfly), Zuniga, Loredano (I due Foscari), the Magistrate (Werther) and Mr Ratcliffe for the American première of Billy Budd (1970).
In 1976 Voketaitis portrayed Rev. John Hale in Robert Ward’s The Crucible with the Florentine Opera. In 1989 he returned to Chicago as Abimelech in Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila. The following year he sang Basilio in The Barber of Seville at the Miami Opera. He has also performed in concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony among many others.
Although Voketaitis's career has been mostly within North America, he has made a few international appearances, including performing at the Liceu in Spain, the Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica, and the Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex in Venezuela. He has also made several recordings for television and CD, six of which have garnered Grammy Award nominations. He was notably awarded the Man of the Year Award from the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, the Distinguished Alumni Medal from his alma mater (Quinnipiac University). In 2009 he was awarded Lithuania's high cultural medal in honour of his artistic achievement and support of Lithuanian culture.