 |
Alan Opie OBE (born 22 March 1945) is a British baritone, primarily known as an opera singer. [1]
|
Alan Opie OBE (born 22 March 1945) is a British baritone, primarily known as an opera singer. [1]
Opie was born in Redruth, Cornwall, and attended Truro School. He went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University as a choral student in 1963. He also studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the London Opera Centre before joining the Sadler's Wells Opera (now the English National Opera, ENO). He became a Principal baritone there while still a student. [2]
Opie has also sung with the other major UK opera companies Scottish Opera, Opera North, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.[ citation needed ] Internationally, he has performed in the opera houses of Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Brussels, Berlin, Chicago and Santa Fe and regularly appears at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.[ citation needed ] In 1978, he sang Messias in Lyric Opera of Chicago's World Premiere production of Penderecki's Paradise Lost , which was also presented at La Scala in January 1979. [3] He has also sung at the Bayreuth Festival. [4] In 1996, Opie switched his status at the ENO from company member to regular guest, enabling him to make his début at La Scala, Milan. There he created the role of Outis in the opera of the same name by Luciano Berio.[ citation needed ]
In March 2017, he performed the role of Arbace in Mozart's Idomeneo at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. [4]
He has recorded for CBS, EMI, Hyperion, Chandos and Decca, winning Grammy Awards in 1996 and 1998 for his involvement in, respectively, recordings of Britten's Peter Grimes and Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . [4]
In 1997, his performance in the title role of Verdi's Falstaff earned Opie a nomination for the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera. [4] He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to music. [5] [6]
Opie and his wife Kathleen (married since 1970) have a son and a daughter. [ citation needed ]
Performed and/or recorded, listed alphabetically:
(performed and/or recorded, listed alphabetically)
Grammy Award-winning recordings in bold.
| Year | Work/s | Composer/s | Artists | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Otello | Verdi | Chicago Symphony Orchestra et al. cond. Sir Georg Solti | Decca |
| 1993 | Bethlehem | Boughton | City of London Sinfonia et al. cond. Alan Melville | Hyperion |
| 1994 | Hugh the Drover | Vaughan Williams | Corydon Orchestra and Singers et al. cond. Matthew Best | Hyperion |
| 1996 | Peter Grimes | Britten | City of London Sinfonia et al. cond. Richard Hickox | Chandos |
| 1997 | Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg | Wagner | Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus cond. Sir Georg Solti | Decca |
| 1998 | Pagliacci | Leoncavallo | London Philharmonic Orchestra et al. cond. David Parry | Chandos |
| 2000 | The Barber of Seville | Rossini | ENO Orchestra and Chorus cond. Gabriele Bellini | Chandos (recorded 1994) |
| Rigoletto | Verdi | ENO Orchestra and Chorus cond. Mark Elder | Chandos | |
| 2002 | Death in Venice | Britten | London Sinfonietta cond. Graeme Jenkins | Kultur DVD |
| 2003 | Peter Grimes | Britten | ENO Orchestra and Chorus cond. David Atherton | Kultur DVD |
| Classical Brubeck | Dave Brubeck | Dave Brubeck Quartet et al. | Telarc | |
| 2004 | Alan Opie sings Bel Canto Arias | various | Chandos | |
José Plácido Domingo Embil is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, German, Spanish, English and Russian in the most prestigious opera houses in the world. Although primarily a lirico-spinto tenor for most of his career, especially popular for his Cavaradossi, Hoffmann, Don José and Canio, he quickly moved into more dramatic roles, becoming the most acclaimed Otello of his generation. In the early 2010s, he transitioned from the tenor repertory into exclusively baritone parts, most notably Simon Boccanegra. As of 2020, he has performed 151 different roles.
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American spinto soprano who was the first African-American soprano to receive international acclaim. From 1961 she began a long association with the Metropolitan Opera. She regularly appeared at the world's major opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and La Scala; at La Scala, she was also the first African American to sing a leading role. She was particularly renowned for her performances of the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida.
Sir Bryn Terfel Jones,, is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially primarily associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro, Leporello and Don Giovanni, and has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Puccini and Wagner.
Evelyn Shulman Lear was an American operatic soprano. Between 1959 and 1992, she appeared in more than forty operatic roles, appeared with every major opera company in the United States and won a Grammy Award in 1966. She was well known for her musical versatility, having sung all three main female roles in Der Rosenkavalier. Lear was also known for her work on 20th century pieces by Robert Ward, Alban Berg, Marvin David Levy, Rudolf Kelterborn and Giselher Klebe. She was married to the American bass-baritone Thomas Stewart until his death in 2006.
Sir Simon Keenlyside is a British baritone who has performed in operas and concerts since the mid-1980s.
Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Berio di Salsa after William Shakespeare's play Othello, or The Moor of Venice; it was premiered in Naples, Teatro del Fondo, 4 December 1816.
Sir Thomas Boaz Allen is an English operatic baritone. He is widely admired in the opera world for his voice, the versatility of his repertoire, and his acting—leading many to regard him as one of the best lyric baritones of the late 20th century. From 2012 to 2022 he served as Chancellor of Durham University.
Norman Stanley Bailey was a British operatic bass-baritone who appeared in leading roles in major opera venues. After an early career in Austria and Germany, he settled in England and was associated with the English National Opera. One of his signature roles was Hans Sachs in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which he performed at La Scala in Milan in 1968 and at the Bayreuth Festival the following year. Later that year he was called upon at the last minute to play the part at the Royal Opera House in London when Hubert Hoffman had to pull out with a sore throat. He also played this part in his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1976.
Brett Polegato is an operatic baritone.
Derek Hammond-Stroud was an English baritone opera singer best known for his performances of German lieder and his international performances in opera, particularly the roles of Alberich in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, Herr Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier and Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He also made recordings, including a series of recordings of the Gilbert and Sullivan patter roles.
Bejun Mehta is an American countertenor. He has been awarded the Echo Klassik, the Gramophone Award, Le Diamant d’Opera Magazine, the Choc de Classica, the Traetta Prize, and been nominated for the Grammy Award, the Laurence Olivier Award, and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Michael Stallknecht called him "arguably the best counter tenor in the world today."
Rosalind Anne Plowright is an English opera singer who spent much of her career as a soprano but in 1999 changed to the mezzo-soprano range.
Sir Donald Conroy McIntyre is an operatic bass-baritone from New Zealand.
Peter Glossop was an English baritone who was the only Englishman to have sung Verdi's great tragic baritone roles at La Scala, Milan. He rose from humble beginnings in Yorkshire to become a leading performer in London and in the major opera houses of Europe and America.
Simone Alaimo is an Italian bass-baritone. He is particularly known for his performances of the bel canto repertoire.
Barry Banks is a Grammy Nominated English/American lyric tenor who, after a long association with The Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera, has achieved acclaim as one of finest interpreters of the Italian bel canto repertoire.
Anthony Michaels-Moore is an English operatic baritone and the first British winner of the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition. Michaels-Moore has since performed in many of the world's major opera houses across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. He has distinguished himself as a specialist in Verdi and Puccini roles, most renowned for his portrayals of Falstaff, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, Iago in Otello, Germont in La traviata, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, and Scarpia in Tosca. In addition to the standard repertoire, he has sung and recorded the baritone roles of some of the less-known 19th Century Italian operas, as well as the popular English art song cycles by Stanford and Vaughan Williams.
Frank Lopardo is an American operatic tenor who was born in Brentwood, New York. Early in his career he specialized in the repertoire of Mozart and Rossini and later transitioned to the works of Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini.
Nathan Berg is an operatic bass-baritone. He is a Grammy Award winner, and four-time Grammy nominated, a Juno award winner and 2014 Juno Awards nominee
Richard Bernstein is an American bass opera singer. A Metropolitan Opera company member since 1995, Bernstein has appeared in over 500 of its performances, including the Grammy award-winning Akhnaten in 2022. His repertoire includes the bel canto of Rossini, classic French opera, and 20th-century works, among others.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
