Sir Willard White Bass-baritone

Courtesy BBC

Willard White was born in Jamaica, where he commenced his musical training at the Jamaican School of Music and then went on to the Juilliard School in New York.

Since making his debut with the New York City Opera he has sung regularly at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the English National OperaSan Francisco, the Opera Houses of Munich, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, and at the Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals. Willard White’s huge repertoire includes the bass-baritone roles in operas by John Adams, Bartok, Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Debussy, Shostakovich, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Messiaen and Gershwin. His performances include Golaud/Pelléas and Mélisande and Tchélio/The Love for Three Oranges in Amsterdam and San Francisco, where he also sang the title-role in Messiaen’s St. François d’Assise and Nekrotzar in Le Grand Macabre; Mephistopheles/Faust at the Bastille, the Peter Sellars productions of The Rake's Progress (Nick Shadow), Oedipus Rex and John Adams’s El Niño, at the Chatelet, Mephistopheles in David Alden’s production of La Damnation de Faust and the title-role in Stein Winge’s production of The Flying Dutchman for English National Opera, Nekrotzar/Le Grand Macabre at the Salzburg Festival, the title-role Boris Godunov for Welsh National Opera, and El Niño with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester in Berlin under Kent Nagano, and in Los Angeles, New York and London. Engagements last season included his debut in the role of Marke in Tristan & Isolde at the Bastille Opera, Paris; Mephistopheles/La Damnation de Faust with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with Valery Gergiev, and in Tokyo with Charles Dutoit; Wotan in the new production of Das Rheingold at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with Sir Simon Rattle; Bluebeard’s Castle with theOrchestre d’Ile de France; and Creon/Oedipus Rex with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Willard White is also much in demand for concerts and recitals throughout Europe, the USA and in the Far East. He sings regularly with the world’s major conductors and orchestras, including the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Hallé, Royal Philharmonic, Concertgebouw, La Scala, Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestras and he has appeared as soloist many times at the BBC Proms, including the Last Night of the Proms, the Proms in the Park and most recently A Child of our Time at the First Night of the Proms. His concert programme “An Evening with Willard White – a tribute to Paul Robeson,” performed with a small group of versatile musicians and linking narrator, continues to be a huge success at Festivals, has been shown on BBC television and has been issued on CD. His latest CD My Way was released on the Sony label.

Engagements in the 2006/7 season include Bluebeard’s Castle at the Bastille Opera, Paris, Wotan/Das Rheingold with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle in Salzburg, Mephistopheles/La Damnation de Faust with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, Wotan in the new production of Die Walküre at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and many concerts and recitals, including further performances of the programme “An Evening with Willard White – a tribute to Paul Robeson”, and recitals in Toronto and at the Queen Elizabeth and Middle Temple Halls in London.

Willard White was awarded the CBE in 1995 and he was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2004.

2006/7