Haydn's The Creation | Program Biographies
Toby Spence | tenor
Peter Rose | bass
MITCH JENKINS
An honours graduate and choral scholar from New College, Oxford, Toby Spence studied at the Opera School of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was the winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society 2011 Singer of the Year award. In concert, Toby has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra; the Los Angeles, Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics; the San Francisco Symphony; the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; the London and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestras; the London Symphony Orchestra; the Bayerischer Rundfunk; and at the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals. He sang an acclaimed Madwoman in Britten’s Curlew River for the Edinburgh Festival, where he has also appeared in recital and most recently in H.M.S. Pinafore. Other recitals include LSO St Luke’s, Opéra de Lille and Wigmore Hall. For the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Toby has sung Ferdinand (The Tempest), David (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Count Almaviva (Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and Tom Rakewell (The Rake’s Progress). For English National Opera, his roles include Tamino, Candide, Paris, Lensky and Faust. His many roles at the Paris Opera include Tom Rakewell and David. He has sung with the Glyndebourne Festival, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Hamburgische Staatsoper and La Monnaie, Brussels. In America, he has appeared with the San Francisco Opera, the Santa Fe Festival, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera. Recent opera engagements include Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus); Antonio (The Tempest) for the Metropolitan Opera; Don Ottavio and Tito for the Vienna State Opera; Essex (Gloriana) and Tamino for the Royal Opera House; Tito, Tamino and Henry Morosus (Die schweigsame Frau) for the Bayerische Staatsoper and David (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) at Paris Opera. Recent concert performances include the London Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and at the Tonhalle, Zurich. Other engagements this season include Captain Vere in the Teatro Real’s new production of Billy Budd and Don Ottavio at the Liceu, Barcelona. In addition to this debut with the Houston Symphony, he appears in concert with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Toby has made numerous recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, BMG, Philips, Collins, Linn Records, Hyperion and EMI.
A regular guest at the world's most important opera houses, Peter Rose's enormous repertoire includes Ramphis, Fasolt, Somnus, Daland, King Mark, the Commendatore, Basilio, Kecal, Ochs, Banquo, Philip, Prince Gremin, Leporello, Osmin, Gurnemanz, Zaccaria, Claggart and Falstaff. He has won particular acclaim for his performances of Bottom which he has performed in Aix-en-Provence, Paris, London, Rome, on the occasion of his debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. A prolific concert artist, he has sung under, among others, Giulini, Rattle, Kleiber, Maazel, Barenboim, Boulez, Mehta, Solti and Masur with orchestras that include the Cleveland Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York, Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras.
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