MATHY PAST
WINNER
Born in New
Zealand, Paul Whelan studied at the Wellington Conservatoire and the
Royal Northern College of Music, where he won several prestigious
prizes and scholarships. In 1993 he won the Lieder Prize in the
Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.
He pursues a
busy concert and recital career. Engagements have included concerts
under Rattle, Nagano, Hickox, Menuhin and Sinaisky. He has performed
with many leading UK orchestras, as well as with the RIAS Berlin
Chamber Choir and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. He has given
recitals at the Wigmore Hall, St David’s Hall in Cardiff, the
Cheltenham Festival, for the BBC Pebble Mill, all accompanied by
Julius Drake; and a recital at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris,
accompanied by David Harper.
Highlights
have included his debuts at Covent Garden, the Netherlands Opera and
the Metropolitan Opera as Schaunard; his debut at the Munich State
Opera as Marcello; his debut for the Welsh National Opera singing
the title role in The Doctor of Myddfai, a new commission by
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (also recorded); his debut at the ENO as
Shaklovity Khovanshchina; the title roles in Don Giovanni
and Eugene Onegin for Opera Australia; Flint Billy Budd
for the Geneva Opera; Figaro in a new production of The Marriage
of Figaro for Scottish Opera; Demetrius in Britten’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream for Opera Australia, as well as in
Tourcoing, Montpellier, Nimes and at the Edinburgh Festival; debuts
at the Bastille as Flint in Billy Budd, the Count in The
Marriage of Figaro in Santiago, Silvio in I Pagliacci in
Nantes; his return to the Metropolitan Opera as Ned Keene, to Munich
for Marcello and to The Royal Opera for performances of
Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress at the Royal Festival Hall,
conducted by Valery Gergiev; the title role of Handel’s Saul
with the RIAS Berlin Chamber Choir; a return to the Bastille as
Marcello, the Husband in Amelie va au Bal, Gil in Le
Secret de Suzanne, Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia in
Nantes.
Among many
engagements in more recent years there have been Apollo in Gluck’s
Alceste at the Netherlands Opera, Olivier in Capriccio
for Opera Australia, the Count in Figaro with Scottish Opera,
Christus in a staged version of the St John Passion at
English National Opera and Escamillo in Carmen with WNO,
Schaunard in a new production of Leoncavallo’s La Boheme for
English National Opera, performances of Theodora with the
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, St. Matthew Passion with the CBSO;
his debut as the Four Villains in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in
Canterbury, New Zealand; Gurrelieder with the Bolshoi Theatre
of Russia, Midsummer Night’s Dream in Pittsburgh, Rinaldo
in Munich and Alceste at the Dresden Festival; Delius Sea
Drift in Osaka; and the Count for Opera Australia.
Recordings
include A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the LSO under Sir
Colin Davis (Philips), Kurt Weill’s Silbersee under Markus
Stenz (BMG) recordings with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos and the
BBC Scottish Symphony for Hyperion.
For Paul's testimonial,
click here.
