Quick Facts
Biography
Alan Opie OBE (born 22 March 1945, Redruth) is a Cornish baritone, primarily known as an opera singer.
Education
He attended Truro School and went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University as a choral student in 1963. He also studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the London Opera Centre before joining the Sadler's Wells Opera (now the English National Opera, ENO). He became a Principal Baritone there while still a student.
Opera Career
Opie has also sung with the other major UK opera companies Scottish Opera, Opera North, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Internationally, he has performed in the opera houses of Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Brussels, Berlin, Chicago and Santa Fe and regularly appears at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. He has also sung at the Bayreuth Festival. In 1996, Opie switched his status at the ENO from company member to regular guest, enabling him to make his début at La Scala, Milan. There he created the role of Outis in the opera of the same name by Luciano Berio.
He has recorded for CBS, EMI, Hyperion, Chandos and Decca, winning Grammy Awards in 1996 and 1998 for his involvement in, respectively, recordings of Britten's Peter Grimes and Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Awards
In 1997, his performance in the title role of Verdi's Falstaff earned Opie a nomination for the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to music.
Personal life
Opie and his wife Kathleen (married since 1970) have a son and a daughter.
Operatic roles
Performed and/or recorded, listed alphabetically:
| Role | Opera | Composer |
|---|---|---|
| Aristæus I | The Mask of Orpheus | Birtwistle |
| various | Death in Venice | Britten |
| Balstrode | Peter Grimes | Britten |
| Beckmesser | Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg | Wagner |
| Chairman Mao | Madame Mao | Bright Sheng |
| Don Alfonso | Così fan tutte | Mozart |
| Don Carlo | Ernani | Verdi |
| Diomede | Troilus and Cressida | Walton |
| Eisenstein, Falke | Die Fledermaus | Johann Strauss II |
| Enrico | Lucia di Lammermoor | Donizetti |
| Falstaff, Ford | Falstaff | Verdi |
| Faninal | Der Rosenkavalier | Richard Strauss |
| Faraone | Mosè in Egitto | Rossini |
| Faust | Doktor Faust | Busoni |
| Fieramosca | Benvenuto Cellini | Berlioz |
| Figaro | Il Barbiere di Siviglia | Rossini |
| Forester | The Cunning Little Vixen | Janáček |
| Germont | La Traviata | Verdi |
| Malatesta | Don Pasquale | Donizetti |
| Marcello | La Bohème | Puccini |
| Marquis de la Force | Dialogues of the Carmelites | Poulenc |
| Melitone | La Forza del Destino | Verdi |
| Miller | Luisa Miller | Verdi |
| Montano | Otello | Verdi |
| Nabucco | Nabucco | Verdi |
| Outis | Outis | Berio |
| Papageno | Die Zauberflöte | Mozart |
| Paolo | Simon Boccanegra | Verdi |
| Rigoletto | Rigoletto | Verdi |
| Sancho Panza | Don Quichotte | Massenet |
| Sharpless | Madam Butterfly | Puccini |
| Sid | Albert Herring | Britten |
| Smirnov | The Bear | Walton |
| Der Spielmann | Königskinder | Humperdinck |
| Stiva | Anna Karenina | Hamilton |
| Taddeo | L'Italiana in Algeri | Rossini |
| Tonio | Pagliacci | Leoncavallo |
| Ulisse | Ulisse | Dallapiccola |
| Valentin | Faust | Gounod |
Selected concert works
(performed and/or recorded, listed alphabetically)
| Work | Composer |
|---|---|
| Ein Deutsches Requiem | Brahms |
| Das Klagende Lied | Mahler |
| Elijah | Mendelssohn |
| Ezio | Handel |
| Hugh the Drover | Vaughan Williams |
| Oedipus Rex | Stravinsky |
| Requiem | Fauré |
| The Dream of Gerontius | Elgar |
| Ultima Rerum | Gerard Victory |
Selected discography
Grammy Award winning recordings in bold.
| Year | Work/s | Composer/s | Artists | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Otello | Verdi | Chicago Symphony Orchestra et al. cond. Sir Georg Solti | Decca |
| 1993 | Bethlehem | Boughton | City of London Sinfonia et al. cond. Alan Melville | Hyperion |
| 1994 | Hugh the Drover | Vaughan Williams | Corydon Orchestra and Singers et al. cond. Matthew Best | Hyperion |
| 1996 | Peter Grimes | Britten | City of London Sinfonia et al. cond. Richard Hickox | Chandos |
| 1997 | Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg | Wagner | Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus cond. Sir Georg Solti | Decca |
| 1998 | Pagliacci | Leoncavallo | London Philharmonic Orchestra et al. cond. David Parry | Chandos |
| 2000 | The Barber of Seville | Rossini | ENO Orchestra and Chorus cond. Gabriele Bellini | Chandos (recorded 1994) |
| Rigoletto | Verdi | ENO Orchestra and Chorus cond. Mark Elder | Chandos | |
| 2002 | Death in Venice | Britten | London Sinfonietta cond. Graeme Jenkins | Kultur DVD |
| 2003 | Peter Grimes | Britten | ENO Orchestra and Chorus cond. David Atherton | Kultur DVD |
| Classical Brubeck | Dave Brubeck | Dave Brubeck Quartet et al. | Telarc | |
| 2004 | Alan Opie sings Bel Canto Arias | various | Chandos | |