Rayfield Artists - David Wilson-Johnson

DAVID WILSON-JOHNSON

Baritone

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"The best of the vocal soloists was British baritone David Wilson-Johnson, a superb singing actor whose sardonic and insinuating, yet always elegantly sung Mephistopheles worked his devilish wiles"
- The Chicago Tribune

The British baritone David Wilson-Johnson was born in Northampton; he studied at St Catharine's College, Cambridge and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has been a guest of the major opera houses, orchestras and festivals, under conductors including Boulez, Brüggen, Giulini, Harnoncourt, Knussen, Leonhardt, Mackerras, Mehta, Previn and Rattle.

Opera repertoire includes Le Rossignol, Boris Godunov, Turandot, Werther, Arianna, Cosí fan tutte (ROH), Peter Grimes (Amsterdam, Brussels, Geneva, Madrid), Billy Budd (ENO, ROH, Opera Bastille), La Damnation de Faust (Berlin, Turin, Tanglewood), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Amsterdam, Opera Garnier), Die Zauberflöte (Opera Garnier), Tristan und Isolde (Monte Carlo), Rameau Les Boreades (Salzburg Festival), Maxwell Davies Eight Songs for a Mad King (Opéra Comique), and the title role in Messiaen St François d'Assise (London, Lyon, Amsterdam, Brussels, New York and Edinburgh Festival).

Concert repertoire includes Parsifal, Mahler Symphony No. 8 and Haydn The Seasons (Rattle), L'Heure Espagnole and Brahms Requiem (Previn), Death in Venice (Montgomery) and Enescu Oedipe (Holland Festival). He sang Beethoven Symphony No. 9 at the Last Night of the Proms after the events of 9/11 to a worldwide audience of 340 million.

Recently he has sung title roles in Tippett King Priam (Nationale Reisopera and BBC Proms), Albeniz Merlin (Teatro Real Madrid) and Shostakovitch The Nose under Rozhdestvensky (Netherlands Opera).

Recent performances include Schumann Paradies an die Peri (Sir Simon Rattle/OAE), The Creation and Beethoven's 9th Symphony with Brüggen, Elias in Strasbourg under Holliger, Elgar Dream of Gerontius (Vladimir Ashkenazy/Sydney Symphony Orchestra), A Child of our Time (Davis/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Tavener's The Whale at the BBC Proms (Atherton/London Sinfonietta), Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette (Dutoit/Philadelphia Orchestra) and La Damnation de Faust (Dutoit/Chicago Symphony Orchestra). Current season highlights include Beethoven's 9th Symphony (Gatti/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Haydn's Harmoniemesse (Jansons/Bayerischen Rundfunks Orchestra), Elijah (Hill/Orchestra of Opera North), Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ (Boyd/Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra), Haydn's L'Isola Disabitata at the Ittingen Whitsun Festival and Stravinsky's Canticum Sacrum at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

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