Peter Auty is established as one of Britain’s leading tenors. Following his professional debut at Opera North, Peter went on to become a company principal at the Royal Opera House, where he has since returned as a guest artist in the roles of Malcolm Macbeth and Arturo Lucia di Lammermoor.
Recent highlights include Pinkerton Madama Butterfly and Laca Klemeň Jenufa for Welsh National Opera, Paul Die tote Stadt for Longborough Festival Opera, Roberto Le Villi at Opera Holland Park, Canio Pagliacci with Opera Ensemble at Iford Arts, and Riccardo in Verdi’s Oberto with Chelsea Opera Group. Des Grieux Manon Lescaut (The Grange Festival); Don José Carmen (Welsh National Opera); Johnson The Girl of the Golden West (RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra); the title role in Puccini’s Edgar (Scottish Opera and at Konzerthaus Berlin); and critically acclaimed performances of Canio Pagliacci with Opera Ensemble in London and at The Grange Festival and Longborough Festival Opera.
In the 2022-23 season he sings the title role in Frachetti’s Asrael at Opera Bonn and will be the tenor soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Philharmonic Orchestra. He will also return to Scottish Opera to perform a series of Verdi Opera Gala concerts.
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Title role - Asrael, Franchetti
Theater Bonn, December 2022
"tenor Peter Auty masters the challengingly high role well and with sensitivity"
Judith von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau
"Peter Auty in the title role reminds of tenor Neil Shicoff with his sparkling timbre and captures the audience with his passionate singing"
Dr. Ralf Siepmann, Opera Online
"Tenor Peter Auty has the necessary power for Asrael, both focussed and at the same mellifluous"
Roberto Becker, Die Deutsche Bühne
Paul (Die tote Stadt)
Longborough Festival Opera, June 2022
There still remain terrors aplenty for the principal singers, however, as Korngold’s sustained use of their upper registers is unremitting, but they are superbly surmounted here by Peter Auty as Paul [...] Auty’s intensity as he wrestles with his attraction for the sensual Mariette while obsessing over the pure memory of the dead Marie is heart-wrenching,
Nicholas Kenyon, The Telegraph ****
As Paul, Peter Auty never flagged in this exhausting tenor role, and not only sounded as fresh at the close as he had in the opening bars, but also used the high tessitura to convey an absolutely convincing, and compelling, characterisation. His voice rests on a solid baritonal shelf but can launch into flights of golden, albeit tortured, lyricism, and he soared through the highly charged vocal rhetoric, pushing gloriously towards the summit: his admission, ‘Betörend Weib, bin dir verfallen’ (Beguiling women, I’ve fallen for you), at the close of Act 2, was heart-breaking in its honesty.
Claire Seymour, Opera Today
Pagliacci (Canio)
Opera Ensemble UK (October & December 2020)
As Pagliacco in the play-within-a-play, eaten up with jealousy, Auty gave a performance of startling intensity. He is the most Italian-sounding of the present crop of British tenors, delivering his famous solo “Vesti la giubba” (“On with the motley”, as it used to be Englished) with gut-churning emotional fervour.
Hugh Canning, The Times
Robert Hayward’s cavernous, effortless Tonio [is] matched by Peter Auty’s Canio – his Vesti la Giubba blending anger with hurt in a blazing vocal and emotional display.
Edward Bhesania, The Stage
Peter Auty is an experienced and formidable Canio, and he switched with ease between menace, anguish and passion, the hinterland of darkness gathering through his impressive “Vesti la giubba”.
Opera Magazine
Peter Auty's performance as Canio is one that I have been lucky enough to have caught before, and time has only intensified his performance. Beautifully sung yet deeply moving, he gave a superb account of the show-piece aria, 'Vesti la giubba' but this was enveloped in a finely thought through performance rather than standing out as a demonstration aria.
Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill
It was Peter Auty’s richly characterised Canio who held the ear and eye for his smouldering portrayal of psychological collapse, embracing a sermonising ‘Un tal gioco’ and an embittered ‘No, Pagliaccio non son’. But it was his passionate ‘Vesti la giubba’, blending hurt and rage, and fearlessly letting rip in an alpha plus rendition, that held me in a vice-like grip.
David Truslove, Opera Today
Carmen (Don Jose)
Welsh National Opera (February 2020)
Don José [was] sung with impressive ease by the lyric tenor Peter Auty. His was a portrayal of gathering intensity, delivering an impassioned ‘Flower Song’, and by Act Four his implicit doom was a mixture of rage and hopelessness.
David Truslove, OperaToday
Don José, played by Peter Auty, with great realism and with a wonderful, all embracing tenor voice, another one of the joys of this thrilling production.
Michael Kelligan, Theatre in Wales
Auty’s performance, both in his duets with Mintzer and with Pritchard, is outstandingly good.
Barbara Michaels, Get the Chance Wales
Peter Auty has a thrilling tenor voice and shines in the scenes with Micaela.
Owen Davies, Plays to See
Jose [is] performed here beautifully by Peter Auty.
Simon Harding, Chew Valley Gazette
Howard Blake: Benedictus
St Alban’s International Organ Festival (July 2019)
The highlight here was a tenor solo, sung with passion by Peter Auty. He brought the whole work majestically to life.
Roderic Dunnett, Church Times
Edgar (Edgar)
Berliner Operngruppe, Konzerthaus Berlin (February 2019)
British tenor Peter Auty ... sang his role with great passion and power. He sings the difficult role masterfully, superbly leading his voice, with fine phrasing and marked legato.
Patrik Klein, IOCO Kritik
Edgar (Edgar)
Scottish Opera (October 2018)
“The tension in Peter Auty’s voice has rarely sounded as apposite as in the higher reaches of Puccini’s youthful tenor writing, to which he brought red-blooded conviction.”
Andrew Clark, Opera Magazine
“Tenor Peter Auty was in superb voice in the title role.”
Keith Bruce, The Herald ****
“Auty is excellent as Edgar, portraying a man who, seen with twenty-first century eyes, might well have mental health problems, whereas the nineteenth century saw only melodrama.”
Catriona Graham, The Opera Critic
“Auty, who has been a regular at Scottish Opera over the last few years … is a very fine young tenor and is in very good form this afternoon.”
Hugh Kerr, The Wee Review
Eugene Onegin (Lensky)
Scottish Opera (April 2018)
“Peter Auty makes a plangent Lensky, delivering his aria full throttle.”
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph ****
“Most impressive too was the Lensky of Peter Auty, he seemed to be on top of his form, and very much like when it was so famously played by the great Russian tenor Sergei Lemeshev. Lensky’s aria to Olga ‘I love you’ was marvellously well sung.”
Gregor Tassie, Seen and Heard International
“Peter Auty gives a magnetic depth to the character of her fiance Lensky. From his bright and lively entrance in Act I to his hot-headed jealousy in Act II, Auty portrays Lensky’s ardent passions with vocal magnitude and a captivating stage presence. His brooding duet as he contemplates his and Onegin’s upcoming duel is rich and heartfelt, with beautifully bubbling obligati from clarinet and oboe.”
Miranda Heggie, ArtsDesk *****
“Peter Auty's jealous Lensky … delivered his heartfelt aria thrillingly before being shot in the duel.”
David Smythe, bachtrack ****
“Peter Auty is a touching Lensky, whose ardent honesty is an obvious mismatch with Sioned Gwen Davies’s wild Olga.”
Andrew Clements, The Guardian ****
Flight (Bill)
Scottish Opera (February 2018)
... class acts from the likes of Peter Auty as a jaded husband discovering his inner bisexual ...
Richard Morrison, The Times *****
Individually, the singing was very fine, Peter Auty and Stephanie Corley as Bill and Tina, playfully tied to a marriage manual but looking for something else, were both in great voice.
David Smythe, Bachtrack ****
Osud (Dr Suda)
Opera North (Oct 2017)
Peter Auty made a nicely smug rival of Dr Suda, good with the girls, pleased with his musical prowess …
Martin Dreyer, Opera Magazine
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