NealDavies

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  • Bass-Baritone

About Neal

Neal Davies is a British bass-baritone. Recent operatic engagements include performances of Jephtha (Zebul) with Music of the Baroque and Jane Glover, Yeoman of the Guard (Sergeant) and Don Alfonso Cosi fan tutte for the English National Opera, and Papageno in the Welsh National Opera’s production of The Magic Flute.

24/25 includes concerts of Berlioz’s L'Enfance du Christ at the Festival Berlioz La Côte Saint André with Paul McCreesh and the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic. Neal will also join Bernard Labadie and the Kansas City Symphony for Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor, sing Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and join Jonathan Cohen and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra for Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Neal will also sing Dr Bartolo in the English National Opera’s production of The Marriage of Figaro.

Notable collaborations include concerts with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, BBC Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez, The Cleveland and Philharmonia orchestras under Christoph von Dohnányi, Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Frans Brüggen, English Concert with Harry Bicket, Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh, Hallé Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder, Concerto Koeln under Ivor Bolton, Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Adam Fischer, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra with Edward Gardner, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin with David Zinman, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with Sir Andrew Davis, and the London Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras under Daniel Harding. He has been a regular guest of the Edinburgh Festival and BBC Proms.

Neal Davies studied at King’s College, London, and the Royal Academy of Music, and won the Lieder Prize at the 1991 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

Contact

Nicholas Moloney

Nicholas Moloney

Senior Artist Manager
Hannah Bishay

Hannah Bishay

Associate Artist Manager

Representation

Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

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Season Highlights

Aug 2024
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Edinburgh International Festival Mendelssohn arr. Bach: St Matthew Passion Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Aug 2024
Festival Berlioz La Côte Saint André
Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ Paul McCreesh (conductor) NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic
Nov 2024 - Nov 2024
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas
Mozart: Requiem Mass No. 19 in D minor K. 626 Bernard Labadie (conductor) Kansas City Symphony
Dec 2024 - Dec 2024
Handel: Messiah (concert tour) Harry Bickett (conductor) The English Concert
Feb 2025 - Feb 2025
English National Opera
Dr Bartolo | Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro
Mar 2025
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Elgar: Dream of Gerontius Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Apr 2025
De Doelen, Rotterdam
Bach: St Matthew Passion Jonathan Cohen (conductor) Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

Audio

  • Schubert, arr. Berlioz - Der Erlkönig
    Credit: Oxford Town Hall
  • Wolf, arr. Berlioz - Anakreons Grab
    Credit: Oxford Town Hall
  • Berlioz - L’Enfance du Christ
    Credit: BBC Radio 3
  • Handel - Acis and Galatea "O ruddier than the cherry"
    Credit: Early Opera Company

Photos

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Selected Repertoire

Beethoven

Fidelio (Don Fernando)

Berlioz

Beatrice et Benedict (Don Pedro)   •   L'enfance du Christ (Hérode)

Britten

Curlew River (Traveller)   •   A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bottom)   •   The Rape of Lucretia (Junius, Collatinus)   •   Billy Budd (Mr Redburn)

Donizetti

L’elisir d’amore (Dulcamara)   •   Don Pasquale (Pasquale)

Handel

Jephtha (Zebul)   •   Giulio Cesare (Achilla)   •   Radamisto (Tiridate)   •   Acis and Galatea (Polyphemus)   •   Theodora (Valens)   •   Alcina (Melisso)   •   Ariodante (King)   •   Saul (Saul)   •   Orlando (Zoroastro)   •   Xerxes (Ariodate)   •   Agrippina (Pallante)   •   Belshazzar (Gobrias)   •   Rodelinda (Garibaldo)

J. Strauss

Die Fledermaus (Frank)

Janacek

The Makropolus Case (Kolenaty)   •   Sarka (Premysl)

Monteverdi

L'Orfeo (Plutone)

Mozart

Die Zauberflöte (Papageno)   •   Don Giovanni (Leporello)   •   Le nozze di Figaro (Bartolo)   •   Così fan tutte (Don Alfonso)

Nicolai

Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor (Reich)

Puccini

Madama Butterfly (Sharpless)

Purcell

Dido and Aeneas (Sorcerer)   •   King Arthur (Bass)

Schubert

Die Freunde von Salamanca (Fidelio)

Sullivan

Mikado (Ko-ko)   •   The Pirates of Penzance (Major General Stanley)   •   The Yeomen of the Guard (Sergeant Meryll of the Yeomen)   •   Trial by Jury (The Learned Judge)

Press

  • Elgar's Dream of Gerontius | BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra | Ryan Wigglesworth

    Paisley Abbey
    Feb 2025

    • Finer still, however, was the trio of soloists... Neal Davies sang the bass solos with stentorian clarity, the sort of sound that pins you to your seat...

  • Marriage of Figaro

    English National Opera
    Feb 2025

    • Neal Davies particularly impressed with a forcefully sung Bartolo, every inch the self-important small town solicitor with a minor scandal in the cupboard

    • Excellent support comes from Rebecca Evans’s Marcellina and Neal Davies’s Bartolo

    • The supporting cast is strong, with stalwarts Neal Davies and Rebecca Evans well matched as Bartolo and Marcellina, Hubert Francis as a wide-boy Basilio and Ava Dodd as Barbarina, all micro-mini and Instaface

  • Bach's Christmas Oratorio

    St John Smith Square, London
    Dec 2023

  • Parry's Prometheus Unbound

    Sep 2023

    • Neal Davies’s bass is broader than in former years, and all the better suited to the kind of Wotan-size declamation demanded of him here.

    • The four soloists on the disc – Sarah Fox, Sarah Connolly, David Butt Philip and Neal Davies – are all exemplary, as is Vann’s direction, the playing and chorus. This is a historic, sublime and essential recording.

  • Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius

    Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
    Jun 2023

    • Neal Davies’ Priest and Angel of the Agony brought gravitas and comfort to Gerontius’ bedside in Part 1, and pleaded imploringly for his soul in Part 2.

    • Neal Davies gave us an authoritative priest and angel of the agony, his oaky tone a welcome contrast.

    • Neal Davies, as the Priest and Angel of the Agony, made himself heard through every texture by a combination of finely projected tone and exemplary enunciation...

  • Mozart's Magic Flute

    Birmingham Hippodrome
    May 2023

    • Bringing stage charisma to the fore was bass-baritone Neal Davies as Papageno, who interpreted the character with a casual informality and humour that matched Evans' libretto perfectly.

  • Handel's Music for the Royals

    City Halls, Glasgow
    Mar 2023

    • Bass baritone Neal Davies was similarly unmistakable, particularly on his solo aria.

  • Gilbert & Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard

    London Coliseum
    Nov 2022

    • And there are excellent performances on stage, particularly from Neal Davies as an avuncular Sergeant Meryll...

    • ...and the bass-baritone Neal Davies, a canny Sergeant Meryll, can sing Handel or Janáček or Ryan Wigglesworth with equal aplomb.

  • Handel's Serse

    St. Martin in the Fields
    May 2022

    • Handel’s Serse returned on Thursday to London, city of its 1738 world premiere, with conductor Harry Bicket, the English Concert, and a cast with no weak link... As Ariodate (father of both Romilda and Atalanta), Neil Davies makes a two-dimensional character lively and believable at every turn.

    • Two quality men supported the phalanx of female power... the always-underrated Neal Davies, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt, gave a more understated but perfectly focused characterisation, this time of smug opportunism which buckles at the last moment.

    • D’Angelo led an outstanding cohort of singers to whom this idiom is now second nature: Paula Murrihy’s fine Arsamene and Daniela Mack’s dark-hued Amastre completed the female dominance in the cast, nobly supported by the male voices of Neal Davies as Ariodate and William Dazeley’s comic Elviro.

  • Mozart's Così fan tutte (Don Alfonso)

    London Coliseum
    Mar 2022

  • Bach's St John Passion

    Battersea Arts Centre, London
    Apr 2021

Discography