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The English tenor, Andrew Staples, was a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral before accepting a Music Scholarship to Eton College. In 1998 he won a Choral Scholarship to King’s College Cambridge, where he gained a degree in Music. Andrew was the first recipient of the RCM Peter Pears Scholarship at the Royal College of Music, London, where he studied with Ryland Davies. He holds the Ian Fleming Charitable Trust Music Education Award from the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund and enjoys the generous support of the Countess of Munster Trust and the Josephine Baker Trust.
On stage Andrew Staples has performed the roles of Ferrando in Così fan tutte (British Youth Opera), Schoolmaster in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen (Opera East Productions) and Aret in Haydn’s Philemon und Baucis for the 2003 Haydn Festival at Eisenstadt, Austria conducted by Trevor Pinnock. He performed the role of Haliate in the Royal College of Music/London Handel Festival production of George Frideric Handel’s Sosarme in conjunction with the London Handel Festival, conducted by Laurence Cummings, and Don Ottavio in a concert performance of excerpts from Don Giovanni with Andrew Parrott and the London Mozart Players. He joined the Benjamin Britten International Opera School (BBIOS) at the RCM in September 2004 where he sang Male Chorus in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, Ferrando in W.A. Mozart's Così fan tutte and Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus. In 2007 he made his debut with the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden as Jacquino in L.v. Beethoven’s Fidelio, returning for First Armed Man in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and sang Belfiore in W.A. Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera for the National Theatre, Prague. He returns to the Royal Opera for both Artabenes in Arne’s Artaxerxes and Narraboth in Salome.
Recent concert engagements include W.A. Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding, W.A. Mozart’s Requiem with the Orchestra Kanazawa in Japan, the USA première of Sir John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple in New York, performances of B. Britten's St Nicolas in Paris, the RCM production of Francis Poulenc’s Carmelites, B. Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and W.A. Mozart's Requiem with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, both conducted by Andrew Manze, J.S. Bach's St John Passion (BWV 245) with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir and W.A. Mozart’s Requiem for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze. In has also appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphonieorchester and Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle; London Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle and Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Harding; Gävle Symphony under Robin Ticciati; Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Trevor Pinnock.
Among his plans are L.v. Beethoven’s Mass in C for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze, Robert Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Sir Simon Rattle and B. Britten’s Billy Budd with the London Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding. Next season he will sing Nencio in Haydn’s L’Infedelta delusa for English Touring Opera and sing his first Tamino for Opera Holland Park. |
