Sam Furness has been awarded the WhatsOnStage Opera Poll 2016 award in the category of Breakthrough Artist in UK Opera. He saw off fierce competition to win the prize, including Tamara Wilson (The Force of Destiny/English National Opera), Nicole Car (Carmen/Royal Opera), Tobias Kehrer (Die Entführung aus dem Serail/Glydnebourne), and Duncan Ward (Conductor, Don Pasquale/Glyndebourne Tour).
Mark Valencia writes in WhatsOnStage:
“Tenor Sam Furness beat off formidable competition to be voted Breakthrough Artist in UK Opera, and no one who witnessed either his startling Baron Lummer in Garsington’s splendid Intermezzo or his accomplishing assumption of the title role in Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann (for ETO) will need telling that he is an exciting talent on the threshold of a great career.”
