His solo, “O Holy Night,” has brought down the house for three consecutive years in Home for the Holidays, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's Christmas show. He's sung onstage at Music Hall with the Cincinnati May Festival. He's starred in operas at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

        Nevertheless, says Mark Panuccio, 28, it isn't easy being a tenor.

        “It's the most difficult voice type. It's not natural for the human voice to sing in the tenor range,” he says. “It's the most difficult to teach, and to sing.”

        The up side, he says, is “it's easy to get jobs. Everyone is always looking for a tenor.”

        Mr. Panuccio will sing the role of Beadle Bamford in the Northern Kentucky Symphony's semi-staged version of Sweeney Todd, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Greaves Hall (tickets: 859-431-6216).

        Mr. Panuccio, who will graduate in June from CCM with a master's degree and artist diploma, recently lost more than 75 pounds in the quest for an opera career.

        “Because of the way the opera world is going, they are looking for better looks onstage,” he says. “I know that my weight issues have not gotten me jobs.”

        Yet, he has sung for five summers at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, and he makes his recording debut in The Saint of Bleeker Street by Gian-Carlo Menotti, released on Chandos this week. Nor is it a fluke that he has sung with Opera Company of Philadelphia.

        He decided to trim down last summer, after Maestro Menotti dubbed Mr. Panuccio his “big tenor.”

        “He'd always say, "Where's my big tenor?' ” Mr. Panuccio says. After years of failed diets, it was the last straw. He went from 343 pounds to 266, with hard work.

        “I realized it was time for me to do something to make myself more marketable. I started eating healthier and I started running,” he says.

        Soon, he'll sing at Opera Nevada and the Utah Opera Festival, keeping Cincinnati as his home base. A lyric tenor, his favorite role is Rodolfo in La Boheme. His hope is to one day sing the title role in Britten's Peter Grimes.

        “My dream is not to sing at La Scala or the Metropolitan Opera,” the tenor says. “My dream is to just be able to touch an audience. If they laugh with me, cry with me, smile at me, if they hate me or love me, then I have done my job.

        “At 28 years old, I feel like I'm on the right path.”

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