British tenor Andrew Staples began his musical career as a choir boy at St. Paul’s Cathedral. He later studied at King’s College in Cambridge and won the Peter Pears Scholarship, which enabled him to continue his education at the Royal College of Music and at the Benjamin Britten International Opera School. There he had his first stage experiences, including Ferrando in Così fan tutte and Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, among others. Staples has also performed at the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, where he appeared in Philemon und Baucis under the direction of Trevor Pinnock; under Andrew Parrott he has sung Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. In 2007 he made his debut at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden as Jaquino in Fidelio and was immediately re-engaged to sing Narraboth in Salome and Artabenes in Arne’s Artaxerxes. Other major credits include performances at the National Theater in Prague, the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, and the Garsington Festival. Staples has also appeared in concert with many leading orchestras and conductors. He sang with the Berlin Philharmonic in Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri in 2009, with Simon Rattle conducting, and was subsequently engaged by Rattle for performances with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has also appeared in concert with Daniel Harding and the London Symphony, with Andrew Manze and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and with Robin Ticciati and the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. Staples performs a repertoire ranging from such English baroque composers as Henry Purcell and Thomas Arne to classic composers of the modern era such as Leoš Janáček and Benjamin Britten.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 23 August 2009 in Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri under the direction of Daniel Harding
August 2011