Baritone Alan Opie is a regular guest at the Metropolitan Opera New York, La Scala, Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Santa Fe Festival, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera and Royal Opera House Covent Garden. He has also sung at the Bayreuth Festival singing Beckmesser – a role also repeated in Berlin, Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna and Turin. At ENO he was nominated for the ‘Outstanding Achievement in Opera’ Olivier Award for his performance of Falstaff.
His extensive concert work has included performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah in San Francisco and Dallas; Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast in Dallas, Denver and Carnegie Hall; Britten’s War Requiem in Washington, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony in Los Angeles, Elgar’s The Kingdom with the Halle Orchestra; Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the Royal Scottish National Symphony; King Olav with the Bergen Symphony Orchestra and the Apostles at the Proms.
Alan Opie has recorded for CBS, EMI, Hyperion, Chandos, and Decca. Releases include “Alan Opie Sings Bel Canto Arias”, Britten’s Gloriana, Albert Herring, Peter Grimes for which he received a Grammy Award, Death in Venice and The Rape of Lucretia; the title role in Dallapiccola’s Ulisse; Tonio in I Pagliacci; Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor; Smirnov in Walton’s The Bear, Carlo in Ernani, di Luna in Il Trovatore, the title role in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg under Sir Georg Solti for which he received his second Grammy award.
Recent performances include Balstrode with the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski, Accademia di Santa Cecilia under Sir Antonio Pappano and San Francisco under Michael Tilson Thomas.
Alan Opie sang the title role in The Death of Klinghoffer at the Metropolitan Opera and recently returned there to sing Count Zeta The Merry Widow and Frank Die Fledermaus.
He opens the 2016/17 season at the Metropolitan Opera with Gamekeeper Russalka and Arbace Idomeneo. Other engagements include a concert appearance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Alan Opie received an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2013.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
Idomeneo, Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera (March 2017)
Alan Opie sang handsomely as a baritone Arbace.
George Loomis, Opera Magazine
Merry Widow, Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera (April 2015)
Alan Opie acted with class.
Zachary Woolfe, New York Times
Bass Alan Opie, as Baron Mirko Zeta, led the supporting characters. What little singing he had was effective, but his quick delivery of his lines kept the pace going.
George Grella, New York Classical Review
The Death of Klinghoffer, Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera (October 2014)
The baritone Alan Opie sings Leon with an elegant blend of poignancy and feistiness.
Anthony Tommasini, New York Times
The part of Leon was created by Sanford Sylvan, and is being sung at the Met by Alan Opie, whose baritone is much darker and rougher than Sylvan’s gentle, silky voice. Opie is devastating in the role. His voice carries gravitas and meaning, and he projects a sound that is very much like that of an old man singing. He is earthy, real, and from the moment he is first heard in Act II, bitterly standing down the terrorists for their cowardice, explosive.
George Grella, New York Classical Review
The eloquent baritone Alan Opie did have a great moment that presumably went a long way to silencing the evening’s protesters.
Manuela Hoelterhoff, Bloomberg
Peter Grimes, London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra (September 2013)
Alan Opie’s Balstrode personified the old sea dog who had seen all, known all.
Hilary Finch, The Times ****
Gianni Schicchi, Opera Holland Park
Opera Holland Park
Alan Opie gives a towering, gleeful performance in the title role.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian
Alan Opie is a world-class Schicchi.
Warwick Thompson, Metro
Alan Opie, needless to say, stole the show as Schicchi himself, dominating the action from his Jean Gabin-like arrival to the triumphant glee of his cackling farewell.
Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage.com
There’s plenty of comic life in a cast dominated by Alan Opie’s worldly wise Schicchi.
Richard Morrison, The Times
La Traviata, Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera (February 2014)
It was Alan Opie, in the role of Germont père, who showed suppleness: his words were given meaning and his voice was full of feeling.
Rian Evans, The Guardian
It was Georgio Germont, with Alan Opie’s interpretation as reliable and as musical as one might expect, who rang truest, and ultimately his sympathy for Violetta and guilt at his earlier intervention was palpable.
Rian Evans, Opera Magazine
Alan Opie Concert Repertoire
| BEETHOVEN | Choral Fantasia |
|---|---|
| BERG | Early Songs |
| BERLIOZ | L'enfance du Christ |
| BRAHMS | Ein Deutches Requiem |
| BRITTEN | War Requiem |
| BRUBECK | Beloved Son |
| DELIUS | Mass of Life Idyll Sea Drift |
| ELGAR | The Apostles |
| FAURE | Requiem |
| HANDEL | Samson Daphne & Apollo |
| HENZE | Neapolitan Songs |
| MAHLER | Kindertotenlieder |
| MENDELSSOHN | Elijah |
| MENOTTI | Martin's Lie (The Stranger) |
| ORFF | Carmina Burana |
| SCHOENBERG | Gurrelieder (Bauer) |
| STRAVINSKY | Pulcinella |
| TAYLOR-COLERIDGE | Hiawatha |
| TIPPETT | The vision of St. Augustine |
| VAUGHAN WILLIAMS | Dona Nobis Pacem Sea Symphony Sancta Civitas |
| WALTON | Belshazzar’s Feast |
Alan Opie Opera Repertoire
| BERIO | Outis (Outis) |
|---|---|
| BERKELEY | For You (Charles Frieth) |
| BERLIOZ | Benvenuto Cellini (Fieramosca) |
| BERNSTEIN | Candide (Pangloss) |
| BIRTWISTLE | The Mask of Orpheus (Aristeus I, Man) |
| BRITTEN | Albert Herring (Mr. Gedge) |
| BUSONI | Dr Faust (Faust) |
| CIMAROSA | Il Maestro di Capella (Il Maestro) |
| DALLAPICCOLA | Ulisse (Ulisse) |
| DONIZETTI | Maria Stuarda (Cecil) |
| GAY | The Beggar’s Opera (Peachum) |
| GILBERT & SULLIVAN | HMS Pinafore (Captain Corcoran) |
| IAIN HAMILTON | Anna Karenina (Stiva) |
| GETTY | Plump Jack (Falstaff) |
| HOLST | The Wandering Scholar (Louis) |
| HUMPERDINK | Die Königskinder (Der Spielmann) |
| JANACEK | Cunning Little Vixen (Forester) |
| KODALY | Hary Janos (Hary Janos) |
| LEONCAVALLO | I Pagliacci (Tonio) |
| MASSENET | Don Quichotte (Sancho Panza) |
| NICHOLAS MAW | Sophie’s Choice (The Doctor) |
| MOZART | Die Zauberflöte (Papageno) |
| OFFENBACH | La vie Parisienne (Baron) |
| PENDERECKI | Paradise Lost (Messias) |
| POULENC | The Carmelites (Marquis de la Force) |
| PROKOFIEV | Betrothal in a Monastery (Don Carlos) |
| PUCCINI | La Boheme (Marcello) |
| RODGERS | South Pacific (Emile de Becque) |
| ROSSINI | Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Figaro) |
| BRIGHT SHENG | Madame Mao (Chairman Mao) |
| SHOSTAKOVICH | The Nose (Kovalyov) |
| SMETANA | The Bartered Bride (Krusina) |
| J.STRAUSS | Die Fledermaus (Falke/Eisenstein) |
| R.STRAUSS | Der Rosenkavalier (Faninal) |
| STRAVINSKY | Renard (Renard) |
| TIPPETT | The Knot Garden (Mangus) |
| VAUGHAN WILLIAMS | Hugh the Drover (John) |
| VERDI | Ernani (Ernani) |
| WAGNER | Die Meistersinger (Beckmesser) |
| WALTON | The Bear (Smirnov) |
| WEILL | Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Trinity Moses) |
| ZEMLINSKY | Es war einmal (Kaspar) |
