Coordinates: 50°52′42″N 0°03′57″E / 50.87833°N 0.06583°E / 50.87833; 0.06583

This article is about the country house and its opera house. See Glyndebourne Festival Opera for the summer opera festival.

Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne House with the auditorium in the right background, 1 August 2006
General information
Type	Opera house
Location	Near Lewes in East Sussex, England

Glyndebourne ( /ˈɡlaɪndbɔːn/) is a country house, thought to be about six hundred years old,^[1] located near Lewes in East Sussex, England. It is also the site of an opera house which, with the exception of its closing during the Second World War, for a few immediate post-war years, and in 1993 during the construction of the new theatre, has been the venue of the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera since 1934.

History of the house[link]

"There had been a manor house at Glynde Bourne (as it was often spelt) since the fifteenth century",^[1] but the exact age of the house is unknown. Some surviving timber framing and pre-Elizabethan panelling makes an early sixteenth-century date the most likely.^[2] In 1618, it came into the possession of the Hay family, passing to James Hay Langham in 1824. He inherited his father's baronetcy and estate in Northamptonshire in 1833 which under the terms of his inheritance should have led to him relinquishing Glyndebourne, but as a lunatic he was unable to do so. After litigation the estate passed to a relative, Mr Langham Christie, but he later had to pay £50,000 to persuade another relative to withdraw a rival claim.

Langham Christie's son, William Langham Christie, made substantial alterations to the house in the 1870s. First, a brick extension hid the house's seventeenth-century facade, while ornate stonework and balustrading was added. Then, in 1876, the architect Ewan Christian was engaged to install bay windows and add decorative brickwork to give the house the Jacobethan appearance which can still be seen from the gardens today. Some of the exterior of the older parts of the house can be seen from the driveway next to the theatre.

Origins of the opera house[link]

John Christie obtained the use of the house in 1913 after the death of William Langham Christie, his grandfather. He came into full legal possession of the estate in 1920. Among other improvements, he added to the house an organ room, 80 feet (24 m) long, in the process almost doubling the length of the south facade of the house. This room contained one of the largest organs outside of a cathedral in the country. It was built by the firm of Hill, Norman & Beard Ltd (bought by Christie in 1923); after the Second World War John Christie made a gift of sections of the soundboards, pipes and structural parts to the rebuilt Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks (which had been destroyed in the blitz); the case and console remain at Glyndebourne.

John Christie's fondness for music led him to hold regular amateur opera evenings in this room, and it was at one of these in 1931 that he met his future wife, the Sussex-born Canadian soprano Audrey Mildmay, a singer with the Carl Rosa Opera company who had been engaged to add a touch of professionalism to the proceedings.^[3] They were married on 4 June 1931 and during their honeymoon attending the Salzburg and Bayreuth festivals, Christie and his wife developed the idea of bringing professional opera to Glyndebourne, although Christie's original concept was for it to be similar to the Bayreuth Festival. As their ideas evolved, the concept changed to focus on smaller-scale productions of operas by Mozart which would be well suited to the intimate scale of the planned theatre.

The first theatre[link]

The organ room, 1 August 2006

As an annex to the organ room, the Christies built a fully equipped and up-to-date theatre with a 300-seat auditorium and an orchestra pit capable of holding a symphony orchestra. Christie engaged conductor Fritz Busch as the first music director, Carl Ebert, the Intendant of Berlin's Städtische Oper was appointed artistic director, and Rudolf Bing became general manager until 1949. All three men were exiles from Nazi Germany.

After extensive rehearsals, the first six-week season opened on 28 May 1934 with a performance of Le nozze di Figaro followed by Così fan tutte. Boyd Neel had conducted the first music heard in the renovated Glyndebourne opera house in 1934, in private performances, at John Christie's invitation.^[4]

John Christie's original theatre was soon enlarged and improved many times after its initial construction. As early as 1936 its capacity was increased to 433; by 1952 it held nearly 600, and finally, in 1977, it held 850 people. In addition, a rehearsal hall was constructed.

Productions were interrupted by the Second World War, during which time the house became an evacuation centre for children from London. After 1945 the Festival slowly began again. Until 1951, the entire burden of financing the opera festival was undertaken by John Christie himself, but, in 1952, the Glyndebourne Festival Society was formed to take over the financial management. Christie's death in 1962 resulted in his son George (later Sir George) taking over, and additional changes and improvements to the theatre continued.

The magnificent pipe organ was built by Hill, Norman and Beard in 1924 and was gradually expanded over the years. John Christie owned a considerable share in the company. Sadly, the organ is now only a gutted shell, the pipes having been donated to various churches for the construction of new organs after the second world war. The organ was originally of 4 manuals and 46 stops, but this was eventually experimented with and expanded to 106 stops and was unusual for and English-built organ in having multiple diapason chorus ranks of pipes.^[5]

The present theatre[link]

By the late 1980s the theatre's expansion, which had proceeded in a somewhat piecemeal fashion, included an agglomeration of outbuildings which housed restaurants, dressing rooms, storage and other facilities. It became clear to George Christie that a completely new theatre - and not just an enlargement of the old one - was necessary. Having chosen the architect Michael Hopkins of Hopkins Architects in a design competition, Christie announced in 1990 that a new theatre, capable of seating 1,200 people, would be constructed in 1992.

The old theatre hosted its last festival in 1992, and construction of a brand-new theatre was under way. It was completed at a cost of some £34 million, 90 per cent of which was raised through donations, so giving the donors control over 28 per cent of the seats. The inaugural performance in the new theatre on 28 May 1994, given sixty years to the day after the old theatre's first performance, was once again Le nozze di Figaro.^[6]

The design of the theatre, a large brick oval building, has resulted in a four-level, horseshoe-shaped auditorium with main level seating, two balconies, and a gallery topped with a circular roof. The over sixty-foot-high stage building is semi-circular in shape and allows for the efficient flying and storage of scenery.

The acoustics, by Derek Sugden and Rob Harris of Arup Acoustics, have been widely acclaimed.

Sales of festival tickets have always been high, but in the 2011 season a new record was set with 99.3 percent of all tickets sold.^[7] In the same season, two operas were relayed live online via The Guardian's website, reaching 40,000 viewers worldwide.^[8]

Education[link]

Since its establishment in 1986, Glyndebourne's Education department has undertaken an array of projects within the local community. Schools around the Sussex and Kent area often visit the venue for performances and workshops. Youth opera projects are also undertaken such as the recent production of Knight Crew for 14-19 year olds and the previous Hip H'Opera project in 2006 - timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. The department has also worked with HMP Lewes since 1988 in projects such as inmate-designed puppet shows influenced by works such as Verdi's Falstaff.

Wind turbine[link]

Glyndebourne have obtained planning permission to erect a wind turbine on Mill Plain (grid reference TQ 4509 1115), 400m from the opera house.

The turbine will be a tubular tower 44m high and a three bladed rotor with a diameter of 52m. It will have an overall height to blade tip of 70m, about half as high as Heathfield Television Mast, a few miles away. The base diameter will be about 3m. The turbine is likely to be pale grey with a semi-matt finish. Construction of the turbine would take place over four months. The estimated cost is £750,000. The turbine will generate 850 kW. This is sufficient, over the whole year, to meet Glyndebourne's electricity demands.^[9]

The site has been used for windmills for many years. A post-mill, erected in 1706, was used until 1921, but collapsed in 1925, and the trestle timbers were blown down in 1964.

Glyndebourne applied for planning permission to Lewes District Council in January 2007. The council granted permission in July 2007, but the decision was called in by the Secretary of State because of the wider implications of the proposal for renewable energy development in the South Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and strong opposition from countryside protection groups and local residents. On 10 July 2008 the Secretary of State granted planning permission.^[10][11]

In 2008-9 Glyndebourne erected a temporary 50m mast on Mill Plain to monitor meteorological conditions for a year, prior to erection of the turbine. The data collected showed lower wind levels than had been predicted at this location, perhaps because 2008-9 had lower wind levels than usual.

References[link]

Notes

Sources

• Allison, John (ed.), Great Opera Houses of the World, supplement to Opera magazine, London 2003
• Beauvert, Thierry, Opera Houses of the World, The Vendome Press, New York, 1995. ISBN 0-86565-978-8
• Binney, Marcus, and Rosy Runciman, Glyndebourne - Building a Vision, London: Thames and Hudson, 1994. ISBN 0-500-27754-0
• Hughes, Spike, Glyndebourne, London: Methuen, 1965.
• Kennedy, Michael, Glyndebourne; A Short History, Oxford: Shire Publications, 2010 ISBN 978-0-7478-0821-3
• Nairn, Ian; and Nikolaus Pevsner (1965). Sussex (Buildings of England series). London: Penguin Books. 
• Norwich, John Julius, Fifty Years of Glyndebourne, London: Jonathan Cape, 1985. ISBN 0-224-02310-1
• Plantamura, Carol, The Opera Lover's Guide to Europe, New York: Citadel Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8065-1842-1
• Zeitz, Karyl Lynn, Opera: the Guide to Western Europe's Great Houses, Santa Fe, New Mexico: John Muir Publications, 1991. ISBN 0-945465-81-5

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Glyndebourne

• Glyndebourne Festival Opera website

Gareth Malone
Gareth Malone at the Queen Elizabeth Hall
Born	1975 Bournemouth
Residence	London, England, UK
Education	Bournemouth School University of East Anglia Royal Academy of Music
Occupation	Choirmaster and television presenter
Known for	The Choir, The Big Performance
Awards	2007: BAFTA Television Award - Best Feature (The Choir) 2009: BAFTA Television Award - Best Feature (The Choir: Boys Don't Sing) 2009: Broadcast Award — Best Popular Factual Programme Winner (The Choir: Boys Don't Sing) 2010: 36th BPG Television and Radio Awards — Best TV Performer in a Non-acting Role & best Factual Entertainment show (The Choir)[1] 2010: Freedom of the City of London
Website
www.garethmalone.com

Gareth Malone (born Bournemouth, 1975^[2][3]) is a British choirmaster and broadcaster, self-described as an "animateur, presenter and populariser of choral singing". He is best known for his television appearances in programmes such as The Choir which focus on singing and introducing choral music to new participants.^[3]

Biography[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2010)

Gareth Edmund Malone was educated at Bournemouth School, and sang with the Symphony Chorus of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO)^[4]. He studied drama at the University of East Anglia, Norwich where he was in the university choir and composed music for theatre productions. After graduating he did private tuition and then applied for a postgraduate vocal studies course at The Royal Academy of Music. He passed with distinction in 2005.

Working at the LSO he was awarded the position of Edward Heath Assistant Animateur in 2001. He entered television work when approached by 20/20, a production company which wanted to make a series about singing in schools. Without knowing who could front the programme they had researched the term "community choirmasters" and discovered Malone’s name. The Choir was very successful, winning two BAFTAs^[5][6] and a Broadcast award.^[7]

Until December 2009, Malone worked for the London Symphony Orchestra at LSO St Luke's where he ran their youth choir and community choir.

On 31 December 2009, Malone conducted the first New Year's Eve Twitter Community Choir performance of Auld Lang Syne. He asked his followers on Twitter, and friends on Facebook, to join in with the event.

A later project was The Knight Crew, a youth opera based on a book written by Nicky Singer and performed at Glyndebourne. After choosing approximately 50 cast out of over 400 applicants between the ages of 14-20 through workshops and auditions, and months of rehearsals, The Knight Crew was performed at Glyndebourne between 3 and 6 March 2010. The project was filmed for a television series, Gareth Malone Goes to Glyndebourne and aired on the BBC on 1 July 2010.

In May 2010 Malone was awarded the Freedom of the City of London by Nick Anstee, Lord Mayor of the City of London in recognition of his music education work in London.^[8]

His first book Music for the People: A Journey through the Pleasures and Pitfalls of Classical Music^[9] was published on 28 April 2011.^[10]

Television work[link]

Gareth Malone's television appearances began in 2007 with his reality television series The Choir, broadcast on BBC Two. The series focussed on teaching choral singing to people who have no experience of singing, with the first programme set in Northolt High School, a comprehensive school in the west London suburbs. Subsequent follow-ups continued the theme by taking choral music to challenging situations; Boys Don't Sing (2008) featured pupils at a boys' school who were reluctant to sing, and the third series, entitled Unsung Town, featured the formation of a community choir in South Oxhey, a suburban town where singing was not a current activity.

In 2011, Malone's show Gareth Malone Goes to Glyndebourne won an International Emmy Award in the Best Arts Programme category.^[11][12]

In 2010 Malone presented a children's programme for CBBC, The Big Performance in which ten keen but extremely shy young singers took the opportunity to overcome their fears. They performed for a larger audience each week, taking it in turns to be the soloist and in the final week they performed for BBC Proms in the Park. A second series was broadcast in 2011 with the final week taking the form of a performance of a choral arrangement of the song "Keep Holding On" for the BBC charity telethon Children in Need 2011, where the ten singers led a live choir in the studio along with chidren's choirs nationwide linked by satellite.^[13]

For the BBC Two programme The Choir: Military Wives, first broadcast in November 2011, Malone went to Chivenor Barracks in Devon creating a choir from wives and partners of military personnel deployed to Afghanistan. The culmination of the programme was the opening performance for The Royal British Legion's Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on 12 November 2011. The three-minute piece performed by the Military Wives Choir was the song Wherever You Are, a love poem compiled from letters written between the women and their absent husbands and partners and set to music by composer Paul Mealor.^[14] A campaign has been launched to promote sales of the CD single, with the aim of it becoming the 2011 Christmas number one in the UK Singles Chart, which has been publicly supported by BBC Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans.^[15] First day sales, which included all pre-orders, indicated that they were outselling their closest rivals, Little Mix, by a hundred singles to one, causing Ladbrokes to close betting for the Christmas number one, and Simon Cowell to admit defeat in the race. The pre-order sales caused the single to become one of the top 20 best-selling music products of all-time at Amazon.co.uk.

Television filmography[link]

Malone's television appearances include to date:^[16]

The Choir: Unsung Town series was also broadcast by NHK Educational TV and NHK BS1 (NHK衛星第1テレビジョン, NHK Ēsē Dai-ichi Terebijon^?) (NHK Broadcasting Satellite Television 1) in Japan in 2010.

Personal life[link]

Malone is married to Becky, an English teacher.^[24] They live in north-west London with their daughter, Esther,^[25] who was born on 22nd September 2010.^[26]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gareth Malone

• Official website
• Gareth Malone at the Internet Movie Database
• Gareth Malone on Twitter
• Youtube video of Gareth conducting the Military Wives choir performing a Paul Mealor composition

Vladimir Jurowski in 2011.

Vladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski (Russian: Владимир Михайлович Юровский; born 4 April 1972, Moscow, Russia) is a Russian conductor. He is the son of conductor Mikhail Jurowski.

Jurowski began his musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1990, he moved with his family, including his brother Dmitri, to Germany, where he completed his education at the music schools at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. He studied conducting with Rolf Reuter and vocal coaching with Semion Skigin.^[1] He participated in a conducting master class with Sir Colin Davis on Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 in 1991.^[2][3]

Jurowski first appeared on the international scene in 1995 at the Wexford Festival, where he conducted Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera May Night, and he returned the following year for Giacomo Meyerbeer's L'étoile du nord, which was recorded by Naxos Records. In April 1996, he made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducting Nabucco.^[4]

In the 1996/1997 season, Jurowski joined the ensemble of the Komische Oper Berlin, as an assistant to Yakov Kreizberg and second Kapellmeister.^[5] He received the title first Kapellmeister a year later, and continued to work there full-time until 2001. He was the principal guest conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna between 2000 and 2003.

In August 2000, Jurowski was named the Music Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and he took on the post in January 2001.^[6] His conducting debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) was in December 2001.^[7] In 2003, he was appointed the LPO's Principal Guest Conductor and a member of the Russian National Orchestra Conductor Collegium^[8] He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra, and a Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Jurowski was reported to have been offered the music directorship of Welsh National Opera upon the 2004 departure of Carlo Rizzi, but he declined the position.^[9] His tenure with Glyndebourne has been highly acclaimed, and Jurowski has spoken of the favourable working conditions at Glyndebourne.^[10] Jurowski is scheduled to step down from the Glyndebourne music directorship after the 2013 season.^{[11] [12]}

In May 2006, Jurowski was announced as the LPO's 11th Principal Conductor, effective with the 2007/2008 season, with an initial contract of 5 years.^[13][14] Several CD recordings of Jurowski conducting the LPO have been released.^[15] In April 2007, Jurowski was one of eight conductors of British orchestras to endorse the 10-year classical music outreach manifesto, "Building on Excellence: Orchestras for the 21st Century", to increase the presence of classical music in the UK, including giving free entry to all British schoolchildren to a classical music concert.^[16] In May 2007, Jurowski received the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Conductor of the Year. In May 2010, the LPO announced the extension of his principal conductorship through the 2014-2015 season.^[17] In October 2011, the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation announced the appointment of Jurowski as its principal conductor, with immediate effect, for an initial contract of 3 years.^[18]

In the USA, Jurowski first conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in December 1999.^[19] He made an acclaimed conducting debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in October 2005.^[20] He returned in February 2007 to Philadelphia for a second guest conducting engagement which also received critical praise.^[21] Jurowski has since become a regular guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra, including appearances in March 2009,^[22] October 2009, March 2010.^[23] and November 2011.

Jurowski and his wife Patricia have two children, Martha and Yuri. The family resides in Berlin.^[3][24]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Category:Vladimir Jurowski

References[link]

External links[link]

• Vladimir Jurowski biography
• Interview
• Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award, 2007 Conductor of the Year, announcement

Miah Persson, born 27 May 1971 in Örnsköldsvik, is a Swedish soprano, active internationally and in recordings.

Career[link]

Miah Persson grew up in Hudiksvall, singing in choirs and taking part in amateur drama productions. After studying social sciences and law at university in Stockholm, she undertook musical studies at the Kulturama, Operastudio 67 and, from 1996, at the University College of Opera also in Stockholm.^[1]

She made her operatic debut as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro at Confidencen in 1998.

As a member of the Royal Swedish Opera her roles have included Barbarina and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Pamina in The Magic Flute (Mozart), Sandrina in La finta giardiniera, Dorinda in Orlando (Handel), Tebaldo in Don Carlos (Verdi), Frasquita in Carmen (Bizet), Gabrielle in La vie Parisienne (Offenbach), Gretel in Hansel und Gretel (Humperdinck) and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier (Richard Strauss).^[2]

In addition to these roles, at other opera houses Miah Persson has sung Brigida in Cimarosa's Gli sposi per accidenti (Studio Lirico, Cortina, Italy), Hero in Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris and Baden-Baden), Costanza in Scarlatti's La Griselda (Staatsoper, Berlin), Nannetta in Verdi’s Falstaff (Aix-en-Provence), and Governess in Britten's The Turn of the Screw (Frankfurt).^[2] Other recent roles include Arianna in Creta in 2009, and in 2010 she sang her first Anne Trulove at Glyndebourne.^[3]

She made her concert debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2003 and her operatic debut there in 2004 (Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier) and returned in 2005 (Sifare in Mitridate).

Her Royal Opera House Covent Garden debut was in 2006 (Susanna) and the same year at Glyndebourne Festival sang (Fiordiligi). In 2009 she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. She has also appeared with the London Gabrieli Consort and Players and at the Carnegie Hall New York, San Francisco Opera, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

At the Proms she has sung in the Brahms' Requiem, Così fan tutte and Mahler's Symphony No. 2, and has also given song recitals at the Wigmore Hall in London. Her broadcasts on Swedish Radio include Britten Les illuminations, songs by Grieg and Sibelius, songs and arias by Mozart, and Respighi's Christmas Cantata.

Her husband is the tenor Jeremy Ovenden; they have a daughter and a son.^[3]

Recordings[link]

Miah Persson's discography includes Mahler Symphony No. 4 with Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Mozart Mass in C minor KV427, Le nozze di Figaro, Cosi Fan Tutte, Mitridate, Rossini songs, Haydn The Creation, The Seasons, the Requiems of Fauré and Duruflé, Handel Rinaldo, Bach Magnificat and Cantatas BMV 105, 179 & 186, Michael Haydn Sancti Hieronymi, Fernström Songs of the sea, and songs by Rangström, Stenhammar, Sjögren, Nystroem.

References[link]

Toby Spence, born London 1969, is a professional and internationally renowned tenor active on the concert platform, in the opera house and in recordings across a wide range of classical music.^[1][2]

Early life and studies[link]

Spence was born into a musical family that had once owned Squire Pianos, a piano manufactory in North London. His father was a doctor, and his mother a pianist, who worked as an archivist at the Royal College of Music. As a young mother, she worked as personal assistant to Walter Legge and Yehudi Menuhin. Artists and musicians were regular lunch guests at the family home. He was educated at Uppingham School and gained an honours degree in music at New College, Oxford,^[2] where he was a choral scholar and was much influence by his tutor Edward Higginbottom. He continued his vocal studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with David Pollard.

Career[link]

Spence's professional debut was in 1995 as Idamante in Welsh National Opera’s production of Idomeneo, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras; he repeated the role later the same year in Munich after only one day of rehearsal.^[2]

Among his first engagements were La Calisto with Rene Jacobs in Brussels, Mitridate in Mitridate Rè di Ponto under Roger Norrington at the Mozart week in Salzburg, and subsequently at the Salzburg Summer Festival, Almaviva in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at the English National Opera, and David in Die Meistersinger under Antonio Pappano at La Monnaie in Brussels. At the same time he was performing on the concert platform in repertoire ranging from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis to Saint François d'Assise by Messiaen.

Toby Spence has on-going connections with English National Opera (ENO), and is a strong believer of the policy of singing in English.^[2] He appeared in successive seasons at the Opéra National de Paris and also at the Bavarian State Opera. His career with the Royal Opera at Covent Garden is nascent. After creating the role of Ferdinand in Thomas Adès' opera The Tempest, he was invited to appear in the next three seasons at Covent Garden.

The tenor also has a close association with The Scottish Ensemble, a string ensemble based in Glasgow, which draws its players from the orchestras of London and Scotland. Every year he tours Scotland with the ensemble, performing recitals in all the major cities north of the border. They have recorded a disc of Britten’s song cycles together, which was greeted enthusiastically by British and international critics alike.

Although he sang in some recitals at the beginning of his professional career, he was dissatisfied with the result and set song to one side for several years. When he resumed recitals his repertoire included Poulenc, Brahms and Britten, as well as the original version of Les nuits d'été with piano.^[1] Other engagements on the concert platform have included a recital and a concert with The Scottish Ensemble at Wigmore Hall, Britten's War Requiem in Vienna, and Bach’s St John Passion with the Berlin Philharmonic under Simon Rattle. He has also sung Gerontius with the Vienna Philharmonic under Rattle. In December 2010, he sang with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Davis in Handel's Messiah.

He made his Proms debut in 1997, in a performance of the Schubert Mass No. 5 in A flat major, D 678, following this with Nielsen's Springtime on Funen in 1999, the Bach St John Passion and Parsifal in 2000, Handel's Acis and Galatea, HWV 49 in 2001, Les Troyens à Carthage in 2003, Les noces in 2004, the Missa solemnis in 2005, Delius A Song of the High Hills in 2009 and Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor 'Choral' in 2011.^[3]

During 2005 and 2006 the tenor's stage roles ranged from Tamino in The Magic Flute at the Teatro Real in Madrid and at ENO, to the Madwoman in Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River at the Edinburgh Festival, Count Almaviva in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at Covent Garden and Tom Rakewell in Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. The latter role was one Spence was keen to play from the start of his career, and he has sung it in several productions around the world.^[1]

Evading categorisation since the beginning of his career, Spence has been described as being at home in both Wagner and Rameau roles, along with everything in between. In the 2006 summer season of the Santa Fe Opera, he sang the roles of Tamino and Ferdinand, the latter in the American premiere production of Adès' The Tempest.

In 2009, Spence sang the role of St. John in Handel's La Resurrezione in a recording with Le Concert d’Astrée under the direction of Emmanuelle Haïm. In 2011 his Chicago debut was as Nanki-Poo in The Mikado.^[2]

In an interview for the Paris Opera in 2008 Spence named Arsène Wenger as his non-musical hero.^[1] A man of keen and wide interests, he regularly visits galleries and is a keen concert and cinema goer. He enjoys travelling and in 2003 spent four weeks going around Iran, visiting several cities.^[2] In 2012 he underwent surgery for thyroid cancer^[4].

Recordings[link]

Toby Spence has participated in many varied recordings, including songs by Liza Lehmann and Arthur Bliss, the Duo de l'ouvreuse de l'Opéra-Comique et de l'employé du Bon Marché by Chabrier, and in Volumes 32 & 35 of the Hyperion Schubert edition.

Other recordings included Parry's Job, Haydn's The Creation, Paroles tissées by Lutosławski, Offenbach's Vert-Vert, Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts, Op. 5, Handel's La Resurrezione, HWV47, Finzi's Dies natalis, Op. 8, La Rondine, Così fan tutte, Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, Op. 31, Bantock's Omar Khayyám, and the title role in Sullivan's Ivanhoe.

References[link]

External sources[link]

• Erica Jeal, "I can be a bit of a rake", The Guardian, London, 16 December, 2005