Allan Clayton

The British tenor Allan Clayton, a native of Solihull in the West Midlands, gained his first musical experience as a choirboy at Worcester Cathedral. He studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, and subsequently completed opera classes at the Royal College of Music in London. From 2007 to 2009, he was sponsored by the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme, and from 2008 to 2011 he was a Fellow of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust. He made his debut as Britten’s Albert Herring at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2008, for which he received the John Christie Award. In the realm of opera, Clayton has since developed a repertoire that ranges from Handel through Mozart to contemporary works. He has appeared in George Benjamin’s Written on Skin at the Dutch National Opera, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and at the Vienna Festival. He created the title role in the world premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet in 2017 and will also appear in this work at the 2023 Munich Opera Festival. Allan Clayton has made guest appearances as Britten’s Peter Grimes at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Madrid’s Teatro Real, the Opéra national de Paris and London’s Royal Opera House, performed David in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger in London and at the Bavarian Staatsoper, and taken part in numerous productions by Barrie Kosky at the Komische Oper Berlin, including the roles of Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Castor in Rameau’s Castor et Pollux, Jupiter in Handel’s Semele, and Bernstein’s Candide. Concert and lieder singing comprise an important part of his artistic practice. He has appeared more than ten times at the BBC Proms, where he sang the title role in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius and performed in Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Sakari Oramo. As a lieder singer, he focuses not only on Franz Schubert’s major cycles and the British repertoire but also on new works: for example, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Josephine Stephenson have both composed song cycles for him. Allan Clayton was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Singer Award in 2018.

March 2023