Dean Robinson - bass
The Australian bass Dean Robinson studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester with Patrick McGuigan and Robert Alderson. He was awarded the Robin Kaye prize for Opera and was a recipient of several major scholarships from the Peter Moores Foundation. He now studies with Benjamin Luxon.
For the Royal Opera, Covent Garden he has performed roles in Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg, Ariadne auf Naxos and Palestrina (which also toured to the Metropolitan Opera, New York). With English National Opera he has appeared as Pluto Orfeo, Second Soldier Salome, Colline La Boheme, and he created the role of Passauf in Gavin Bryers’ Dr. Ox’s Experiment. With the Netherlands Opera he sang Plutone Orfeo, also released on DVD. His debut with Welsh National Opera was in Billy Budd as Lt. Ratcliffe and subsequently Angelotti Tosca and Colline La Boheme. For Scottish Opera he has sung Sparafucile Rigolett), Sarastro The Magic Flute and Don Magnifico Cenerentola. Engagements with The Early Opera Company include Il Re Ariodante, Claudio Agrippina, Zoroastro Orlando and Polyphemus Acis and Galataea and with English Touring Opera, Sarastro The Magic Flute and Comte de Grieux Manon. For Mid Wales Opera he has sung Colline, Sparafucile the title role in Don Giovanni, Figaro Le Nozze di Figaro and Coppélius/Dr Miracle/Dapertutto The Tales of Hoffman. He has sung the role of Don Profondo in Festival Giovane performances of Il Viaggio a Reims at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. Other festival appearances include Le Gouverneur in Le Comte Ory and Douglas in La Donna del Lago for Garsington Opera. He made his Opera North debut singing Fabrizio in The Thieving Magpie, and subsequently several concert performances of Zacchariah Nabucco. Last season he made his Australian debut as Saul in Charpentier’s David and Jonathan for Pinchgut Opera in Sydney.
He has performed extensively on the concert platform with engagements including St John Passion with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, L’Enfance du Christ with Kent Nagano in Manchester and Ariadne auf Naxos and Beatrice et Benedict with the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Colin Davies respectively. He was bass soloist in performances of Messiah with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Halle, Venice and Istanbul, and has performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra singing the role of First Officer in The Death of Klinghoffer conducted by Leonard Slatkin. At Easter 2004 he sang with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast performing the Bach Cantata, Ich Habe Genug and Brahms Ein Deutches Requiem. Other concert appearances include Via Crucis by the Polish composer Pavel Lukaszewski in Gdansk and Rossini Petite Messe Sollenelle at the Gaude Mater Festival of Sacred Music in Czestochova. He recently sung in St John Passion on tour with the Irish Baroque Orchestra.
His recordings include Duca d’Argile in Donizetti’s Il prigione d’Edimborgo, and Timagene in Pacini’s Alessandro nel’Indie for Opera Rara; Masetto Don Giovanni, High Priest Nabucco, Lakey Ariadne auf Naxos and a recital album with Elizabeth Futral for Chandos Records, and Don Pedro Beatrice et Benedict with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live). On film he sings the role of First Officer in an adaptation of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer, and Goffredo in Judith Wier’s Armida, both in collaboration with Channel 4 television.
Future engagements include Don Basilio Il barbiere di Siviglia for Stanley Hall Opera, Sam Trouble in Tahita for Psappha in London and Buxton, Edmund in Alexander Goehr’s The Promised Land for ETO and Scottish Opera’s contemporary opera project Five:15.