Australian tenor Steve Davislim began his musical career as s a horn player before he decided to study voice at the Victorian College of the Arts with Dame Joan Hammod. He completed his studies with Gösta Winbergh, Neil Shicoff, and Irwin Gage's Lieder class. He gained further background in stage performance at the International Opera Studio in Zurich and sang as an ensemble member of Zurich Opera between 1994 and 2000. There, among other roles, he sang Almaviva in The Barber of Seville and Mozart’s Tamino and Ferrando under Franz Welser-Möst, as well as Don Ottavio in a production of Don Giovanni conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and, with regard to contemporary repertoire, he created the role of the prince in the world premiere of Heinz Holliger’s Schneewittchen. Steve Davislim soon received invitations to perform at other renowned opera houses, such as the Hamburg State Opera, where he appeared as Lenski in Eugene Onegin, London’s Royal Opera House (Fenton in Falstaff), Paris (Weber’s Oberon), Vienna (Stravinsky’s Tom Rakewell), and the Salzburg Festival, where he made his debut in 2002 singing Pong in Turandot. In December 2005 he performed the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo for the opening of the season at La Scala, appearing there soon after in the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Teneke. In 2007 he sang Görge in Zemlinsky’s Traumgörge at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and in April 2008 he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Mozart’s Abduction. As a concert artist, Steve Davislim has collaborated with such conductors as Riccardo Chailly Colin Davis, John Eliot Gardiner, Bernard Haitink, Roger Norrington, Michel Plasson, Christian Thielemann, Franz Welser-Möst, and David Zinman. His discography encompasses works from Bach to Tippett and Martin.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on August 24, 1999 in Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s“Faust” under John Eliot Gardiner. Last appearance: April 2, 2009 in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Bernard Haitink.