One of Britain’s most distinguished and best established baritones, Peter Savidge has performed for the major opera companies in the UK and for many leading houses in Europe and elsewhere. His elegant and well focused style of singing has been singled out for particularly high praise.
Recent highlights include Sharpless Madama Butterfly for Opera North, Ned Keene Peter Grimes for Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and To See the Invisible, a new chamber opera by Emily Howard for Aldeburgh Festival. In 2018/19 he will perform Benjamin Ellin’s oratorio ‘One Before Zero’ with L’Orchestre de Picardie in Slovakia and Germany, and will return to Opera North for Marco Gianni Schicchi and to Garsington Opera for Krušina The Bartered Bride.
He made his professional debut with the English Music Theatre and has featured regularly for Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in roles such as Figaro Barber of Seville, Sharpless Madam Butterfly, Don Giovanni Don Giovanni, The Count Marriage of Figaro, Don Alfonso Cosi fan Tutte, Faninal Der Rosenkavalier, The Traveller Death in Venice, Ned Keene Peter Grimes and Mr. Flint Billy Budd.
He has also sung major roles abroad for Canadian Opera Company Toronto, Opera de Rhin Strasbourg, Opera Comique and Chatelet Theatre Paris, Cologne Opera and houses in Tel Aviv, Berlin, Nancy, Genova, Modena and Reggio Emilia.
As well appearing in all the major British concert venues, Peter Savidge has a formidable international career and has sung at the festivals of Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Florence, Venice, Tours, Brussels, Vienna, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, and Oslo.
He has recorded albums of songs by Vaughan Williams, Bax and Bantock; with conductors Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Sir Charles Mackerras and Albert Herring with Steuart Bedford. Equally at home in light music, he has featured on Friday Night is Music Night and with the RTE in Dublin.
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Bartered Bride, Garsington Opera
June 2019
Peter Savidge and Heather Shipp made finely drawn, intensely human portrayals out of Mařenka’s parents
George Hall, Opera Magazine
Peter Savidge gave a superbly consistent account of the bride’s father Krušina, beset with constant trouble
Sebastian Scotney, The Arts Desk
To See the Invisible, Aldeburgh Festival
May 2018
Baritone Peter Savidge’s endless spoken accounts provided a fascinating backdrop for the musical parts of the brothel scene; a perfectly executed – and occasionally amusing – loop of income and expenditure.
Claire Jackson, Opera Now
Madama Butterfly, Opera North
February 2018
Peter Savidge’s amiable baritone made his Sharpless a supportive mediator between east and west.
Martin Dreyer, Opera Magazine
all excel in their respective roles...Peter Savidge delivers a warm and entirely convincing performance as the upstanding and honest Sharpless, somehow knowing how this story would end before it even began
Simon Binns, Manchester Evening News
Billy Budd, Opera North
Aldeburgh Festival, June 2017
Peter Savidge as a deeply humane Mr Redburn. (The First Lieutenant's parting glance towards Alan Oke's anguished, magnificent Captain Vere was an indelible moment, haunting in its compassion.)
Mark Valencia, Bachtrack
Gianni Schicchi, Opera North
February and March 2015
With the likes of Peter Savidge as Marco ... there was strength in depth.
Martin Dreyer, Opera Magazine
Death in Venice, Oper am Rhein
June 2014
Also great is the baritone Peter Savidge, who engagingly portrays the seven death allegories from traveller to street singer.
Westdeutsche Allgemeine
At his side is Peter Savidge as the traveller, who wonderfully portrays the character's diabolism and scores points against his opponent with a distinctive baritone
Thomas Molke, Online Muzik Magazin
Owen Wingrave
ArtHaus Musik DVD
Peter Savidge’s Coyle captures the character wonderfully.
Opera Now Magazine
Madama Butterfly, Opera North
Autumn 2011
Peter Savidge was, as he always is in Opera North productions, effortlessly brilliant.
Rod McPhee, Yorkshire Evening Post
Peter Savidge was excellent as Sharpless, the American consul who tries in vain both to restrain Pinkerton and to get Butterfly to face harsh reality. The mixture of perception and diffidence was perfectly expressed.
Anthony Arblaster, The Independent
Peter Savidge is outstanding as an anguished Sharpless
Richard Morrison, The Times
even better is Peter Savidge as the American consul Sharpless, whose every shrug suggesting the world-weary cynicism of the professional diplomat.
Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk
So the blame rests with an unhealthy collusion between East and West – and poor Consul Sharpless is in the firing line! Without the power to do more than warn Pinkerton, Sharpless is helpless, but complicit – all of which is conveyed in the performance of Peter Savidge, refined over several Opera North Butterflies, urbane, but tormented, his suave, soft-grained baritone exuding sympathy in every note.
Ron Simpson, What’s On Stage
Peter Savidge’s Concert Repertoire
| CPE BACH | Magnificat |
|---|---|
| J.S. BACH | Various Cantatas incl. No. 82 Ich habe genug |
| BEETHOVEN | Symphony No. 9 |
| BERLIOZ | L’Enfance du Christ |
| BRAHMS | Ein Deutches Requiem |
| BRITTEN | War Requiem |
| DALLAPICCOLA | Cinque Canti |
| DELIUS | Sea Drift |
| DURUFLE | Requiem |
| DVORAK | Stabat Mater |
| ELGAR | The Apostles |
| FAURÉ | Requiem |
| HANDEL | Acis and Galatea |
| HAYDN | Various Masses |
| HENZE | Novae de Infinitae Laudes |
| HONEGGER | Le Roi David |
| JANACEK | Glagolitic Mass |
| MENDELSSOHN | Elijah |
| MONTEVERDI | Vespers 1610 |
| MOZART | Various Masses |
| PURCELL | Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day |
| RACHMANINOV | The Bells |
| ROSSINI | Petite Messe Solennelle |
| SCHOENBERG | A Survivor from Warsaw |
| SCHUBERT | Masses |
| SZYMANOWSKI | Stabat Mater(Polish) |
| TIPPETT | A Child of Our Time |
| VAUGHAN WILLIAMS | Dona Nobis Pacem |
| WALTON | Belshazzar’s Feast |
| WEILL | Berliner Requiem |
Peter Savidge’s Opera Repertoire
| BERG | Lulu (Banker/Theatre Manager) |
|---|---|
| BIRTWISTLE | Punch & Judy (Choregos) |
| BIZET | Carmen (Dan Cairo, Morales) |
| BLOW | Venus & Adonis |
| BRAUNFELS | Die Vogel (Prometheus) |
| BRITTEN | Curlew River (Ferryman; Traveller) |
| DONIZETTI | Don Pasquale (Malatesta) |
| GOUNOD | Romeo et Juliette (Capulet) |
| HANDEL | Tamurlano (Leone) |
| HAYDN | L’Anima del Filosofo |
| HOLST | Savitri (Death) |
| JANACEK | From the House of the Dead (Goryanchikov) |
| KRENEK | What Price Confidence? |
| LEHAR | Merry Widow (Danilo) |
| MARTIN | Le Vin Herbe |
| MARTINU | Julietta (L’homme au casque, vendeur des reves) |
| MASSENET | Manon (Lescaut) |
| MATTHUS | The Song of Love and Death (Marquis) |
| MENOTTI | Amahl and the Night Visitors (Melchior) |
| MOZART | Cosi fan Tutte (Don Alfonso) |
| OFFENBACH | La Perichole |
| PUCCINI | La Boheme (Marcello, Schaunard) |
| PURCELL | Dido and Aeneas |
| RAVEL | L’Enfant et les Sortileges (Horloge Comtoise) |
| RIMSKY-KORSAKOV | Mozart and Salieri |
| ROSSINI | La Cenerentola (Dandini) |
| J. STRAUSS | Die Fledermaus (Falke) |
| R. STRAUSS | Ariadne (Harlequin, Music Master) |
| STRAVINSKY | The Rake’s Progress (Nick Shadow) |
| TCHAIKOVSKY | Eugene Onegin |
| VERDI | La Traviata (Germont Pere) |
| WAGNER | Gotterdammerung (Gunther) |
| WALTON | The Bear |
| WEILL | Der Jasager (Teacher) |
