Peter Sidhom was born in Egypt of a Maltese-Italian mother and an Egyptian father, and settled in England at the age of ten. After reading Modern Languages at London University, he studied singing with Hervey Alan and Josephine Veasey.
Peter Sidhom has appeared at many of the world’s leading international opera houses including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival, Opera Bastille Paris, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, La Monnaie Brussels, Teatro Comunale Florence, Theatre du Capitole Toulouse, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Teatro Real de Madrid and Teatro La Fenice. He has also sung leading roles with all the British companies including ENO, Scottish Opera, WNO and Opera North.
Operatic roles have included Alberich Der Ring des Nibelungen, Scarpia Tosca and Paolo Simon Boccanegra for Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Falstaff and Pizarro Fidelio for Scottish Opera, The Traveller Death in Venice in Lyon, Bregenz and Aldeburgh, Klingsor Parsifal in Nice, Faninal Der Rosenkavalier in San Francisco and Chicago and Balstrode Peter Grimes at the Bastille and in Geneva.
Equally at home on the concert platform, he has appeared in all the major UK concert halls and appears frequently at the BBC Proms. Conductors he has worked with include Richard Armstrong, David Atherton, Martyn Brabbins, Paul Daniel, Andrew Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Mark Elder, Bernard Haitink, Richard Hickox, Oliver Knussen, Sir Charles Mackerras, Antonio Pappano, Carlo Rizzi and Edo de Waart.
Recent and future engagements include Belshazzar’s Feast in Singapore, Merlin Le Roi Arthus for Opera National de Paris, Alberich Das Rheingold with the Hong Kong Philharmonic (released on Naxos), General Groves at Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla, Scarpia for St Etienne Opera and Balstrode at Deutsche Oper Berlin and at Opera de Monte Carlo, and Alberich Götterdämmerung at Oper Leipzig.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
Walton: Belshazzar's Feast
The Esplanade, Singapore (August 2019)
Baritone Peter Sidhom was a powerful stage presence with a voice to match.
He expounded on the vast riches of Babylon with relish and had real menace as he expostulated on Belshazzar's terrible downfall. This was a voice of stern authority and immense power, which commanded attention and cut through the swathes of orchestral and choral texture like a scythe.
When Sidhom declared the death of Belshazzar in the single word, Slain, the responding choral shout came like the report of a firing squad - abrupt and decisive.
Marc Rochester, The Straits Times
Peter Sidhom huffed, puffed and blew away the audience away with his almost-evangelical zeal, sonorously declaiming his part with ease. He revelled in ‘Babylon was great city’, pointedly putting away his music before that section arrived, and filling the hall with such lovingly articulated visions that you could almost smell the frankincense.
Derek Lim, The Flying Inkpot
Balstrode, Peter Grimes
Opéra Monte-Carlo (April 2018)
With his beautiful clear and warm voice, the Egyptian baritone Peter Sidhom portrays an emotional and moving Captain Balstrode.
Emmanuel Andrieu, Opera Online
Complementing this plateau, we note in addition the very beautiful vocal and scenic performances of the baritone Peter Sidhom (Captain Balstrode), who had already impressed us with his Alberich in a Monegasque Rheingold in November 2013…
Jean-Luc Vannier, Musicologie
With Captain Balstrode (Peter Sidhom, impeccable in all respects)
Christian Jarniat, Metamag
Beautiful baritone voice, warm, clear, intense.
Christian Colombeau, Podcast Journal
The Balstrode of Peter Sidhom held the attention with an intense timbre, like a chain of beads, and a power that never disappears in the overall sound.
Gilles Charlassier, Anaclase
Le Roi Arthus, Opera national de Paris
(May/June 2015)
Peter Sidhom delivered a perfect Merlin.
Jos Hermans, Leidmotif
The singers of the numerous smaller roles were greatly convincing, headed by ... Peter Sidhom as Sorcerer Merlin, here the alter ego and conscience of the king.
Christian Wildhagen, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
We applaude ... the manifest authority of Peter Sidhom's Merlin.
BB, Anaclase
Doctor Atomic, Teatro de la Maestranza Seville
(March 2015)
Peter Sidhom’s diction and authority were just right for General Groves.
Victoria Stapells, Opera Magazine
Das Rheingold, Hong Kong Philharmonic
Naxos 8660374-75. (Released: Nov 2015)
Peter Sidhom’s Alberich combines real malevolence with a touch of the panto-mime villain.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
[Matthias Goerne’s Wotan] is well supported by a cast that includes some vivid characterisations (Peter Sidhom’s high-Gothic Alberich, ...)
Richard Fairman, Financial Times
Alberich is portrayed with snarling menace by baritone Peter Sidhom, who, despite being unafraid of distorting the voice in service to his depiction of the character’s agenda, ultimately sings the part with greater fidelity to Wagner’s score than many recorded Alberichs. In the opera’s first scene, he dispatches 'Hehe! ihr Nicker' with the forcefulness of a gunshot, and Sidhom’s increasingly agitated, unsettling articulations of 'Garstig, glatter glitschriger Glimmer!' and 'Der Welt Erbe gewann'ich zu eigen durch dich?' are electrifying. ... His portrait of the embittered Nibelung is laudably consistent. The baritone’s account of 'Hehe! Hehe! Hieher! Hieher! Tückischer Zwerg!' is invigorating, and in both 'Schau, du Schelm!' and 'Die in linder Lüfte Weh'n da oben ihr lebt' Alberich’s nefarious intentions scintillate in Sidhom’s singing. The opera’s final scene prompts Sidhom to give broad expression to Alberich’s frustration. His 'Wohlan, die Niblungen rief ich mir nah' and 'Gezahlt hab' ich nun laß' mich ziehn!' exude hatred and a burgeoning quest for vengeance. Sidhom is an Alberich who epitomizes villainy without caricature, and his considered, confident singing inspires sympathy for the character’s suffering.
Joseph Newsome, Voix des Arts
The storytelling is at the fore; impeccable diction is the order of the day. As revolting as Alberich always is, we can actually hear the flirtatious playfulness in the opera’s opening moments until he realizes that he doesn’t have a chance. And from then on, he’s simply vile–Peter Sidhom sings with an audible sneer and a ringing top to the voice that we rarely get in this role. He’s a baritone with remarkable “face”.
Robert Levine, Classics Today
Peter Sidhom enjoys himself greatly playing Alberich as an out-and-out ‘baddie’ with cackling laughter.
Mike Ashman, Gramophone
Individual performances give great pleasure. ... Peter Sidhom’s ripely bad-ass Alberich.
Marc Valencia, Sinfini Music
Das Rheingold, Opera de Paris
(June 2011)
world-beating performances from his rasping Alberich (Peter Sidhom) and Kim Begley’s Loge
Francis Carlin, Financial Times
baritone Peter Sidhom is wonderfully nasty as Alberich
Judy Fayard, Wall Street Journal
The opera’s two other crucial roles fare better. As the ring’s initial owner, the dwarf Alberich, Peter Sidhom in a vibrantly sung
performance appears delirious with power when his fortunes are high but plunges into despair after Wotan wrests the ring from
him
George Loomis, New York Times
Peter Sidhom’s Opera Repertoire
| ADAMS | Nixon in China (Kissinger) |
|---|---|
| BARTOK | Bluebeard’s Castle (Bluebeard) |
| BEETHOVEN | Fidelio (Pizarro) |
| BIZET | Carmen (Escamillo) |
| BLISS | The Olympians (Jupiter) |
| BRITTEN | Billy Budd (Claggart, Redburn, Flint) |
| DALLAPICCOLA | Volo di Notte (Riviere) |
| DONIZETTI | L’Elisir d’Amore (Belcore, Dulcamara) |
| DVORAK | The Jacobin (Bohus) |
| GLASS | Planet 8 (The Representative) |
| GLUCK | Iphigénie en Tauride (Thoas) |
| GOLDMARK | Die Königin von Saba (Solomon) |
| GOUNOD | Faust (Mephistopheles) |
| HOLST | Savitri (Death) |
| LEONCAVALLO | I Pagliacci (Tonio) |
| LEONE | L’Oracolo (Cim-Fen) |
| MASCAGNI | Cavelleria Rusticana (Alfio) |
| MARTINU | The Greek Passion (Father Gregoris) |
| MASSENET | Herodiade (Herod) |
| McCUNN | Jeannie Deans (Deans) |
| MENOTTI | The Consul (Policeman) |
| MEYERBEER | L’Africaine (Nelusko) |
| MOZART | Le Nozze di Figaro (Figaro, Count) |
| MUSSORGSKY | Khovanshchina (Shaklovity) |
| OFFENBACH | La Belle Hélène (Agamemnon) |
| PONCHIELLI | La Gioconda (Barnaba) |
| PROKOFIEV | Love for Three Oranges (Leander) |
| PUCCINI | Le Villi (Guglielmo Wulf) |
| REIMANN | The Ghost Sonata (Bengtsson) |
| ROSSINI | Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Figaro, Dr Bartolo) |
| SCHREKER | Der Ferne Klang (Dr. Vigelius) |
| SMYTH | The Wreckers (Pascoe) |
| STRAUSS | Der Rosenkavalier (Faninal) |
| STRAVINSKY | The Rake’s Progress (Nick Shadow) |
| TCHAIKOVSKY | Eugene Onegin (Onegin) |
| TIPPETT | King Priam (Priam) |
| VERDI | La Traviata (Germont) |
| WAGNER | The Ring Cycle (Alberich, Donner, Gunther) |
| WALTON | The Bear (Smirnov) |
| ZEMLINSKY | Der Zwerg (Don Estoban) |
Peter Sidhom’s Concert Repertoire
| J.S BACH | Magnificat |
|---|---|
| BEETHOVEN | Symphony No. 9 |
| BRAHMS | Ein Deutsches Requiem |
| BRITTEN | A War Requiem |
| BRUCKNER | Te Deum |
| BUXTEHUDE | Magnificat |
| DVORAK | Te Deum |
| ELGAR | The Dream of Gerontius |
| FINZI | In terra pax |
| HANDEL | The Messiah |
| HAYDN | The Creation (Die Schöpfung) |
| MAHLER | Kindertotenlieder |
| MENDELSSOHN | Elijah (Elias) |
| MOZART | Requiem |
| RACHMANINOV | The Bells |
| ROSSINI | Stabat Mater |
| SCHOENBERG | Gurrelieder |
| STRAVINSKY | Les Noces |
| TAVERNER | The Whale |
| VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS | Five Mystical Songs |
| VERDI | Messa di Requiem |
| WALTON | Belshazzar’s Feast |
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