With some of the best dancing you'll see on a UK opera stage, a uniformly excellent cast (you want names? OK, look out for baritone Benjamin Lewis)...I'd happily have sat through it again. (The Observer)
Credit: Sim Cannetty-Clarke © NOS 2016
Described as ‘something special’ by Opera Magazine, British baritone Benjamin Lewis studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and the National Opera Studio. He won first prize at the Les Azuriales International Singing Competition 2017, and the Leonard Ingrams Foundation Award 2016; Benjamin is the recipient of the Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal, and is a Samling Artist. From the 2018/19 season he will be a member of the soloist ensemble at the Landestheater Detmold, where his roles will include Valentin Faust, Plunkett Martha, Peter Hänsel und Gretel, Angelotti Tosca, and Miller Luisa Miller.
Benjamin began singing as a founding member of the Halle Youth Choir and a student of Patrick McGuigan, and went on to study Archaeology and Anthropology at Oxford University, where, as a student, he played a principal role in nearly every Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. His operatic studies were then generously supported by the Musicians’ Company Goldman Award, the Help Musicians UK Richard Van Allan Award, the Help Musicians UK Fleming Award, the Help Musicians UK Postgraduate Performance Award, the Tillett Trust and the Colin Keer Trust. He was also the recipient of an Independent Opera Postgraduate Voice Fellowship.
Benjamin’s college roles included roles Boris Paradise Moscow, Belcore L'Elisir d'Amore and Danilo The Merry Widow, conducted by Clark Rundell, Francesco Pasqualetti and Wyn Davies respectively. Benjamin was also a member of the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus in 2015, and appeared as one of the soloists in Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music in the BBC Last Night of the Proms 2016. More recent roles have included Sacristan Tosca and Sharpless Madama Butterfly (Mananan Opera); Il Conte, Le Nozze di Figaro (Trinity Opera); Count Harasova (cover) The Jacobin (Buxton International Festival); title role (cover, one performance) Eugene Onegin and Trojan Idomeneo (Garsington Opera); Pelléas (cover) Pelléas et Mélisande (Scottish Opera); and Mark Rutland (cover) Marnie (English National Opera).
This season, following Benjamin’s performances on the Scottish Opera Highlights tour, he will be covering the role of Papageno Die Zauberflöte for Garsington Opera, and singing the role of Tarquinius The Rape of Lucretia at the Grimeborn Festival.
Benjamin was the 2014 winner of the RNCM's Frederic Cox Award, the 2015 winner of the Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award, and received the Judges' Discretionary Prize for 'showing huge promise as a Verdi Baritone' at the inaugural Fulham Opera Verdi Prize in 2015 judged by David Syrus, Sir Thomas Allen and Yvonne Howard. He currently studies with Nicholas Powell.
Benjamin began singing as a founding member of the Halle Youth Choir and a student of Patrick McGuigan, and went on to study Archaeology and Anthropology at Oxford University, where, as a student, he played a principal role in nearly every Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. His operatic studies were then generously supported by the Musicians’ Company Goldman Award, the Help Musicians UK Richard Van Allan Award, the Help Musicians UK Fleming Award, the Help Musicians UK Postgraduate Performance Award, the Tillett Trust and the Colin Keer Trust. He was also the recipient of an Independent Opera Postgraduate Voice Fellowship.
Benjamin’s college roles included roles Boris Paradise Moscow, Belcore L'Elisir d'Amore and Danilo The Merry Widow, conducted by Clark Rundell, Francesco Pasqualetti and Wyn Davies respectively. Benjamin was also a member of the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus in 2015, and appeared as one of the soloists in Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music in the BBC Last Night of the Proms 2016. More recent roles have included Sacristan Tosca and Sharpless Madama Butterfly (Mananan Opera); Il Conte, Le Nozze di Figaro (Trinity Opera); Count Harasova (cover) The Jacobin (Buxton International Festival); title role (cover, one performance) Eugene Onegin and Trojan Idomeneo (Garsington Opera); Pelléas (cover) Pelléas et Mélisande (Scottish Opera); and Mark Rutland (cover) Marnie (English National Opera).
This season, following Benjamin’s performances on the Scottish Opera Highlights tour, he will be covering the role of Papageno Die Zauberflöte for Garsington Opera, and singing the role of Tarquinius The Rape of Lucretia at the Grimeborn Festival.
Benjamin was the 2014 winner of the RNCM's Frederic Cox Award, the 2015 winner of the Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award, and received the Judges' Discretionary Prize for 'showing huge promise as a Verdi Baritone' at the inaugural Fulham Opera Verdi Prize in 2015 judged by David Syrus, Sir Thomas Allen and Yvonne Howard. He currently studies with Nicholas Powell.
Benjamin Lewis sang with richness of tone; his baritone is already maturing into something special. (Michael Kennedy, Opera Magazine)
Header photograph: Credit: Sim Cannetty-Clarke © NOS 2016