By Laura Wallace
Originally published in BRAVO Issue 72, Fall 2026
When the curtain rises on LA Opera’s season opening production of Carmen on Saturday, October 17, it will mark tenor Joshua Guerrero’s homecoming.
A well-known Mexican American tenor on the world stage, Joshua Guerrero honed his operatic skills from 2012–2015 as a member of LA Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program. In 2014, he won second prize at Placido Domingo’s Operalia Competition, and the next year, he appeared as Count Almaviva, under Conductor Laureate James Conlon, on a recording of LA Opera’s Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, which won Guerrero his first GRAMMY Award.
BRAVO: In October, you’ll return to LA Opera playing Don José in Bizet’s Carmen—conducted by the company’s new music director, Domingo Hindoyan—after “growing up” here as a Young Artist. What does this mean to you?
Joshua Guerrero: It’s emotional, especially having been a Young Artist here, and then being able to establish myself abroad and sing at some of the world’s great houses. It feels very full circle now to come home to LA. There’s something meaningful about returning to the company that believed in me early on. It was Placido Domingo, James Conlon, and Joshua Winograde who took a risk on this really green tenor. I was a wild card. And I think the risk paid off.
My homecoming is very reminiscent of the Zarzuela that I performed at the Operalia Competition in 2014 called “De este apacible rincón de Madrid”. It’s about a soldier who leaves Madrid to make his way in the world and then describes what it’s like to return home. Things that were familiar then, remain familiar, but they’re also different because of the passing of time.
BRAVO: Carmen remains an audience favorite. Why do you think that is?
JG: Aside from the obvious—Bizet’s music, it’s got so many of the number one hits—it’s incredibly human. It’s about obsession, desire, jealousy, freedom, vulnerability. It still resonates and always will resonate with the common person.
BRAVO: What’s the emotional journey you want the audience to take with you as Don José evolves from a dutiful soldier to a murderous stalker?
JG: I want the audience to feel conflicted because it’s not a cookie-cutter character—and at some point, we all wrestle with jealousy and emotional co-dependency. Don José is an unstable character. That’s obvious from the start. But I try not to overly dwell on that, and instead play him with sincerity so that his very real emotions can be triggered as he moves through his tragedy.
BRAVO: Don José is a “tour de force” role, with voice and acting demands not only daunting but also escalating. How do you manage the vocal shift from soft, lyrical to heavy, intense—and with enough power in the final scene to compete with a highly distraught mezzo and a fired-up orchestra?
JG: You have to pace yourself technically. But it’s one of those roles that makes exercising restraint difficult, given the need for constant emoting, what with all the jealousy and obsession. It’s an emotional roller coaster. And if you get carried away, you start to wear and tear, and come the fourth act, you’re already worn out.
BRAVO: How did you train for such a demanding role and was it different from how you typically train for operas?
JG: I find roles like these to be more difficult than a standard Verdi repertoire. The French ones are notoriously difficult because it’s not just about powerful singing. You must find the subtlety—the different colors in your voice. There’s a lot of piano and mezzo forte moments that Bizet wants the singer to observe, as it adds to the brilliant orchestration.
Even in the famous “Flower Song,” there’s a lot of restraint. I think the most perfect version I ever found was Jonas Kaufmann’s. He has a beautiful vulnerability in the first half when he’s saying Carmen threw him a flower and he kept it in prison. At the end, he expresses his love for her—not with a declamatory B flat, but with an emotionally vulnerable pianissimo that crescendos up into a beautiful falsetto. If you can do that, by God, you don’t have to scream.
So I practice a lot. I’ll go over and over these phrases, trying to find the right color for me. I want what’s appropriate, especially with conductor Domingo Hindoyan, whom I just had the pleasure of working with for the first time in Paris. He’s such a singer’s conductor, and he will keep the orchestra down so that if you’re whispering a phrase, you can hear it over the orchestra.
BRAVO: What has been your favorite role so far?
JG: Hands down, Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut. I think that’s because I associate it with the first time I was able to sing it—in Frankfurt in 2019, with Asmik Grigorian and Iurii Samoilov, who have become close friends. Creating and performing with them, it was three months of just perfection.
BRAVO: At this point in your career, besides getting to sing the national anthem at an LA Dodger game, do you have a dream role, and where would you like to sing it?
JG: Right now, I would have to say Dick Johnson in La Fanciulla del West in San Francisco or LA. For so many reasons. It’s a rare Puccini opera with a happy ending. It’s so American. It’s in California. It’s a Mexican in disguise. He robs Wells Fargo. It’s me!
Let’s Go Dodgers!
BRAVO: As a Young Artist, you sang the national anthem at a Dodgers game in 2014. How did that feel for a diehard Dodger fan?
JG: It was literally a dream come true to open for the season—a feeling unlike anything I’ve experienced before. There’s like 60,000 fans screaming at you while you’re singing. Well, more like 30,000, because the rest are still in the parking lot trying to get in.
BRAVO: You sang the anthem in English—as you did again this past July at Dodger Stadium. Do you feel it would be OK for the anthem to also be sung in Spanish?
JG: It’s a point of contention for a lot of people. For me, as an artist, I feel like we must forfeit our opinions so that we don’t stain ourselves with policy or politics. But in its truest form, artists are supposed to be tools for human progression, and I believe America’s cultural identity has evolved through many voices.
At the end of the day, what is the national anthem about? It’s music, and music is about connection—and if you can connect with a certain audience demographic or group, that’s important. It helps people to be seen and represented, and there’s a beauty in that. So, I hope there’s room for both perspectives to coexist. It’s about tolerance.
BRAVO: Since you will undoubtedly be invited back to sing at Dodger Stadium, which LA Dodger player would you most like to do a duet with?
JG: I think the best singer would probably be Mookie Betts, as he’s an all-around athlete. But I think the obvious answer would be Shohei Otani. Just to see what kind of duet we could come up with.
BRAVO: If the LA Dodgers also invite you to play ball, which position would you like to play?
JG: I would have to be an outfielder. Right field.
BRAVO: How about Don José if he also gets an invite?
JG: He would be a catcher because he’s controlling, he’s obsessive, he’s emotionally intense. He’s got to be calling the pitches.
Photo: Joshua Guerrero singing the national anthem at Dodger Stadium. Courtesy of LA Dodgers/Jada Harris.