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REVIEWS:

Wozzeck was Shuler Hensley, a Curtis graduate who's now a seasoned performer in opera and on Broadway. His imposing but never woolly baritone found dramatic meaning in the disjointed vocal lines that characterize Wozzeck's derangement. (David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer)

The soldier Wozzeck, played by Curtis alum and much-lauded Broadway vet Shuler Hensley, seethed amid menial chores and harsh insults from his commanding officers. Mr. Hensley tapped into a persona that was alienated yet fully relatable - a complicated figure capable of both tenderness and panicked rage. His movements were jerky and disconnected, and he seemed to fully inhabit the damage from a battery of military experiments that robbed him of control of his limbs. As he grew consumed by visions of blood and fire, one could feel Mr. Hensley’s Wozzeck coming untethered, like a possessed man giving way to the demons within him. His singing approach was less nuanced, frequently edging into a bellow, but had many impressive moments, including several ventures into falsetto and his declamation of “We poor people!” Despite his size, Mr. Hensley made himself pitifully small in his shared scenes, including those with Karen Jesse’s Marie. (Dave Allen, Philadelphia Bulletin) 

There was a seasoned guest artist in the title role, Shuler Hensley, a Curtis graduate class of 1993. Hensley was deeply moving in his utterly convincing portrayal of Wozzeck. (Brian Dickie, Chicago Opera Theater)  

Hensley and Collins leave bold imprints on the performance. Hensley catches the disintegration of Wozzeck’s character and sings powerfully. (Robert Baxter, ConcertoNet)  

The Curtis Opera production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, the signature opera of German Expressionism, made the most of the cramped facilities of the Perelman Theater, with lead singers Shuler Henley and Karen Jesse in good voice and Mark Barton’s lighting particularly accenting the brooding and anguished score. Georg Buchner’s timeless story of a maddened soldier who kills the one thing he loves remains as relevant as ever. Shuler Hensley (Curtis ’93), best known for his work on the Broadway stage, gives Wozzeck a brooding and full-throated voice that moves from confusion and woe to menace. (Robert Zaller, Philadelphia Broad Street Review)

PRESS:

Unhinged onstage!
A not-to-be-missed feature on Shuler by David Patrick Stearns, classical music critic at philly.com.

"If ever a blank stare was also a penetrating projection of everyday despair, it's Shuler Hensley's aspect as he rehearses the thorny title role of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, for its opening tomorrow at the Kimmel Center. And then Hensley sings - a challenging feat in an opera that, like his character's mind, bursts with thickets of sound unhinged from anything resembling terra firma, often requiring a vocal style somewhere between speech and song."

"After this opera, there is nothing in the world that I fear in terms of learning music" 

Interchanging Idioms Blog from composer Chip Michael.

Shuler Hensley has gone on from the Curtis Institute’s superb opera program to stardom on Broadway and returns to Curtis to fill the dramatically riveting and vocally demanding role of the brooding, poverty-stricken soldier Wozzeck. This is the first time that the Curtis Opera Theatre has invited alumni to perform as lead artists alongside students

Once-Banned Operatic Glamour Interesting detail about the opera from the Philadelphia Bulletin's Lewis Whittington.

“Shuler is such an incredibly generous performer. He’s full of great ideas ... that makes all the difference.” 

Opera Tawk Q&A with Shuler's co-star Jason Collins from Dave Allen at Phawker.com

"In this production, you’re working with Shuler Hensley. He’s a large man, bigger than you, and you have to boss him around and beat him up. How are you going to handle that?"

On the beat feature at Opera News Online.

Early in his career Shuler Hensley had three resumés: one for film and television, one for musical theater and one for opera. Such specialization had a purpose: "My film resumé did not include opera and musical theater," remembers Hensley, "because they would think I couldn't act. My musical theater resumé would not include opera, and my opera resumé would not include musical theater, because they'd think I wouldn't be singing properly."

Despite numerous movie and TV appearances, Hensley has had his professional high-water marks in the theater: he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Jud Fry in the National Theatre revival of Oklahoma!, and he recently finished a turn as the Monster in Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein. Now he's preparing for the most daunting operatic undertaking of his career - the title role in Wozzeck, presented this month by the Curtis Institute (Hensley is a '93 alum), in collaboration with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, at the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater.

"I didn't know anything about Wozzeck until Mikael Eliasen, Curtis's artistic director of vocal studies, asked me to take a look at it and see what I thought. I'm still daunted. I probably will be daunted in May when all this is over. If you have the rhythm but not the notes, you have half of it. If you have the notes and not the rhythm, you've got none of it - you're always in the wrong place. I've got all the recordings of the piece. I like the Fischer-Dieskau. It's nice to hear a lighter baritone and someone who is so good with the language that it becomes more theatrical in nature.

"There are opera roles that I don't know if I'll ever get to do, but that I find fascinating in terms of the characters. Iago, maybe, down the road. Even Nick Shadow. I'm hoping that the Berg is such a unique process in learning that it's going to be embedded in my head and psyche. It's not about getting everything flawless - it's about trying to convey everything that is meant to be conveyed."