Alan Opie

Baritone

• Biography
• Reviews
• Repertoire
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  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 and Carnegie Hall; Britten’s War Requiem in Washington, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony in Los Angeles, Elgar’s The Kingdom with the Halle Orchestra and 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 appearances have included the title role in The Death of Klinghoffer for ENO, a return to ROH in La Fille du Regiment, the leading role in the world premiere of Michael Berkeley’s opera For You at the Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden, and his return to La Scala as Kolenaty in The Makropoulos Case.

  Alan Opie is represented worldwide by Robert Slotover at Rayfield Allied.
  This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.

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  • War Requiem, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
    Royal Festival Hall

    He was partnered in these grief-filled Wilfred Owen settings by the ageless Alan Opie, somber of mood and rich of timbre.

    Mark Valencia, Classical Source

  • Merry Widow, Philharmonia Orchestra
    Royal Festival Hall

    Alan Opie plays a robust Baron Zeta.

    Hilary Finch, The Times

    ...a stalwart performance from Alan Opie.

    Martin Kettle, The Guardian

    The excellent Alan Opie as Baron Zeta (who one wished had had more to sing)...

    Edward Seckerson, The Arts Desk

    Nearly 30 years on, the always reliable Alan Opie was a grizzled – but still young-at-heart – Baron Zeta, and I wished Lehár had given him more to sing.

    Jim Pritchard, Seen and Heard

  • Gianni Schicchi
    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

    the splendid Schicchi of Alan Opie, whose commanding presence, convinced both in sly characterisation and his sonorous baritone; one never doubted the venal Donati clan had little chance against his scheming.

    John E de Wald, Opera Britannia

    Alan Opie is a charismatic Schicchi, a notable assumption…Opie ensures that Schicchi’s final speech (to the audience) gets him off the hook. No jury would convict!

    Colin Anderson, ClassicalSource.com

    Alan Opie’s Schicchi is perfectly judged from start to finish.

    George Hall, The Stage

    there’s plenty of comic life in a cast dominated by Alan Opie’s worldly wise Schicchi

    Richard Morrison, The Times

    a great performance by Alan Opie

    Robert Thicknesse, Opera Now

    What distinguished this cast from many others was the thoroughly Italian, highly-charged atmosphere it created, crystallised by the appearance of Alan Opie’s supreme Schicchi. Oozing street cred, his expression alone showed that this would be a routine job for him. So it proved. While members of the Donati family bundled the body in and out of cupboards, he calmly called the shots, his baritone in fine fettle.

    Martin Dreyer, Opera

  • Delius: A Mass of Life
    Naxos Recording

    His soloists are outstanding…but the star is Alan Opie, whose lyrical singing is wonderful.

    Hugh Canning , The Sunday Times

    Alan Opie, who has the lion’s share of the solo music in the work, is almost Wotan-like in his performances. From his first Nietzschean dance he is majestic and brings out of the score that vibrant, heady, Teutonic contemporaneity with which Delius had clearly become enthralled at this point in his career. Opie’s singing of what s effectively the role of Zarathustra has immense authority and his impressive range (up to high G) is ideal for Delius’ onerous vocal demands.

    Jeremy Dibble, Gramophone

    The baritone soloist, to all intents and purposes the voice of the philosopher in this work, is Cornishman Alan Opie – ‘a legend’, as Hill describes him, and a veteran of that 2009 centenary performance. Back at the session, he is unstintingly ardent in all the strenuous demands of this large and challenging role.

    David Threasher, Gramophone

    The singing is suitably majestic for Nietzsche's vision of mankind's destiny...with soloists – chief among them Alan Opie – in magnificent form.

    Stephen Pritchard, The Observer

    Any performance of A Mass of Life stands or falls by its soloists, and in particular the baritone, who embodies Zarathustra and thus Nietzsche himself. The name Alan Opie is a guarantee of quality, and so turns out to be. His assumption of the role is calm and sober, though not at all lacking in passion, and with great nobility of utterance when required. He is on top vocal form in this taxing music, with even a certain tenor-like quality - in the fifth movement of the first part for example - and a ringing top G minutes before the close. He is very impressive indeed in the soliloquies near the beginning of Part 2, and without a hint of excess, even managing to minimize the occasional hint of bombast in the music; this admirable singer convinces more than any of his rivals...The performance of the Mass is superbly paced by Hill, and Opie is magnificent.

    William Hedley, International Record Review

  • The Death of Klinghoffer
    English National Opera, Spring 2012

    All of the solo roles are taken memorably too...especially Alan Opie as Leon Klinghoffer himself, who sings his final number, the Aria of the Falling Body, which Adams calls a gymnopédie, with devastating simplicity.

    Andrew Clements, The Guardian

    the excellent Alan Opie

    Edward Seckerson, The Independent

    with Alan Opie and Michaela Martens outstanding as Mr and Mrs Klinghoffer.

    Richard Fairman, The Financial Times

    Outstanding among an admirable cast are Alan Opie...

    Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph

    The staging is often dark and indistinct despite brilliant moments: one was the choreographed depiction of the dead Klinghoffer and his wheelchair falling to the ocean bed as his ghostly double (movingly performed by Alan Opie) sings his "Aria of the Falling Body". A top ensemble cast deserves high praise

    Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

    Alan Opie) heartbreakingly eloquent in the "Aria of the Falling Body”

    Anna Pickard, Independent on Sunday

    the musical performance is compelling. Alan Opie is a believable, human Klinghoffer

    Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

    …Alan Opie''s Klinghoffer and Michaela Martens as his wife…both excel…

    Alexandra Coughlin, New Statesman

    The scene in which Klinghoffer is murdered ratchets up the tension to an almost unbearable degree. Alan Opie’s singing of the consequent Aria of the Falling Body has a surreal poignancy.

    George Hall, The Stage

  • Cunning Little Vixen: New York Philharmonic
    (June 2011)

    The cast, singing Norman Tucker’s English translation of Janacek’s own Czech libretto, is excellent...there was no problem making out the words of the robust baritone Alan Opie as the Forester, who brought out the character’s internal conflicts...The lucky audience on Wednesday gave everyone involved a cheering ovation.

    New York Times

  • Falstaff, Opéra national du Rhin
    (June/July 2009)

    Le baryton Alan Opie, lauréat d'un Olivier Award pour le rôle-titre de cet opéra, s'impose comme un grand chanteur doublé d'un merveilleux acteur: d'une fatuité sans borne au départ, il se casse le nez sur la malignité des femmes et conclut désabusé qu'en effet, il est trop vieux, trop gros, que ses cheveux sont gris et que le monde est bien méchant: «Tout dans le monde est farce... Chaque mortel se moque d'autrui, mais rit bien qui rit le dernier»

    L'Alsace

  • Rosenkavalier, Wiener Staatsoper
    (April 2008)

    Und Alan Opie gefaellt als pyknischer Herr von Faninal, dem man seine Schrecken und drohende Ohnmacht wegen der delikaten Vorkommnisse absolute glaubt.

    Kronenzeitung

  • Rigoletto, Opera Co. Philadelphia
    (October 2007)

    Cornish baritone Alan Opie is as convincing as any Rigoletto I’ve ever seen, and my experiences go back to the days of Leonard Warren, Robert Merrill and Cornell MacNeil. Opie’s singing is lovely, although his voice does not have their lush sound – but who does, nowadays. Opie surpasses them in creating a human being with whom we empathize. His devotion to his daughter, his heartbreak when she’s seduced, and his desire for vengeance are totally believable.

    The Opera Critic

  • Death In Venice, City of London Sinfonia, Hickox
    (February 2005)

    I chose the concert performance which preceded this recording of this great work as my outstanding opera experience of 2004. It is exactly reproduced here, with the advantage of better balance in the subsidiary roles and off-stage chorus… Alan Opie’s marvellous assumption of the seven roles allotted to the baritone for which he unfailingly produces the right timbre and expression, whether sinister, smarmy, mocking or menacing.

    Sunday Telegraph

  • Cunning Little Vixen, La Scala
    (June 2003)

    Alan Opie delicato e sensibile, era il Guardiacaccia ideale per questa interpretazione, con i suoi accenti vibranti e malinconici… Uno spettacolo appassionante e curato, salutato con gradissimo calore dal pubblico in sala.

    Il giornale della musica

  • Benvenuto Cellini, Metropolitan Opera
    (December 2003)

    Alan Opie created a wonderfully unattractive Fieramosca

    MusicalAmerica.com

• Alan Opie Opera Repertoire

  BERIO

  • Outis (Outis)

  BERKELEY

  • For You (Charles Frieth)

  BERLIOZ

  • Benvenuto Cellini (Fieramosca)
  • Damnation of Faust (Mephistopheles)

  BERNSTEIN

  • Candide (Pangloss)

  BIRTWISTLE

  • The Mask of Orpheus (Aristeus I, Man)

  BRITTEN

  • Albert Herring (Mr. Gedge)
  • Billy Budd (Redburn)
  • Death in Venice (Baritone roles)
  • Gloriana (Cecil)
  • Owen Wingrave (Mr. Coyle)
  • Peter Grimes (Balstrode)
  • The Rape of Lucretia (Tarquinius/Junius)
  • War Requiem

  BUSONI

  • Dr Faust (Faust)

  CIMAROSA

  • Il Maestro di Capella (Il Maestro)

  DALLAPICCOLA

  • Ulisse (Ulisse)

  DONIZETTI

  • Maria Stuarda (Cecil)
  • Don Pasquale (Malatesta)
  • Lucia di Lammermoor (Enrico)
  • La Fille du Régiment (Sulpice)

  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)
  • Hansel & Gretel (Father)

  JANACEK

  • Cunning Little Vixen (Forester)
  • Makropoulos Case (Kolenaty)

  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)
  • Le Nozze di Figaro (Figaro/Count)
  • Cosi fan Tutte (Don Alfonso)
  • La Clemenza di Tito (Publius)

  OFFENBACH

  • La vie Parisienne (Baron)

  PENDERECKI

  • Paradise Lost (Messias)

  POULENC

  • The Carmelites (Marquis de la Force)

  PROKOFIEV

  • Betrothal in a Monastery (Don Carlos)
  • War and Peace (Napoleon)

  PUCCINI

  • La Boheme (Marcello)
  • Madame Butterfly (Sharpless)
  • Gianni Schicchi (Gianni Schicchi)
  • Tosca (Scarpia)
  • Turandot (Ping)

  RODGERS

  • South Pacific (Emile de Becque)

  ROSSINI

  • Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Figaro)
  • Count Ory (Raimbaud)
  • Cenerentola (Dandini)
  • Italian Girl in Algiers (Taddeo)
  • Mose (Faraone)

  BRIGHT SHENG

  • Madame Mao (Chairman Mao)

  SHOSTAKOVICH

  • The Nose (Kovalyov)

  SMETANA

  • The Bartered Bride (Krusina)
  • The Kiss (Tomes)
  • The Secret (Kalina)

  J.STRAUSS

  • Die Fledermaus (Falke/Eisenstein)

  R.STRAUSS

  • Der Rosenkavalier (Faninal)
  • Ariadne auf Naxos (Harlequin)

  STRAVINSKY

  • Renard (Renard)
  • Oedipus Rex (Creon/Messenger)

  TIPPETT

  • The Knot Garden (Mangus)

  VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

  • Hugh the Drover (John)
  • Pilgrim’s Progress (Pilgrim)

  VERDI

  • Ernani (Ernani)
  • Falstaff (Falstaff/Ford)
  • La Forza del Destino (Melitone)
  • Simon Boccanegra (Paolo)
  • Luisa Miller (Miller)
  • Macbeth (Macbeth)
  • Nabucco (Nabucco) Rigoletto (Rigoletto)
  • La Traviata (Germont)

  WAGNER

  • Die Meistersinger (Beckmesser)
  • Parsifal (Amfortas)

  WALTON

  • The Bear (Smirnov)
  • Troilus & Cressida (Diomede)

  WEILL

  • Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Trinity Moses)

  ZEMLINSKY

  • Es war einmal (Kaspar)

  Alan Opie Concert Repertoire

  BEETHOVEN

  • Choral Fantasia
  • Symphony No. 9

  BERG

  • Early Songs

  BERLIOZ

  • L'enfance du Christ

  BRHAMS

  • Ein Deutches Requiem

  BRITTEN

  • War Requiem
  • Canticle IV 'The Journey of the Magi'

  BRUBECK

  • Beloved Son

  DELIUS

  • Mass of Life Idyll Sea Drift

  ELGAR

  • The Apostles
  • The Dream of Gerontius
  • The Kingdom
  • King Olaf

  FAURE

  • Requiem

  HANDEL

  • Samson Daphne & Apollo

  HENZE

  • Neapolitan Songs

  MAHLER

  • Kindertotenlieder
  • Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen
  • Das Klagende Lied Rückert Lieder Symphony No.8

  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

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