JonathanLemalu

/
  • Bass

About Jonathan

Joint winner of the 2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award and the recipient of the 2002 Royal Philharmonic Society’s Award for Young Artist of the Year, New Zealand-born Samoan Jonathan Lemalu has been one of the most distinguished basses of his generation. He has been made an ONZM for his services to opera, and been named an Honorary Fellow at the Royal College of Music.

Jonathan performs at world-renowned opera houses, including The Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Chicago Lyric Opera, Dallas Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera Australia, and Glyndebourne. He has also performed at the Salzburg Festival. His concert and recital performances span both classical and contemporary repertoire and include the Berlin, New York, Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Strasbourg and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, and the New Zealand, London, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Paris and Tokyo Symphony orchestras, with world renowned conductors that include Davis, Dutoit, Gergiev, Daniel Harding, Harnoncourt, Mackerras, Mehta, Norrington, Pappano, Sir Simon Rattle and Summers.

Jonathan’s debut recital disc was awarded the Gramophone Magazine Debut Artist of the Year award. He subsequently released his first solo recording, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and then a recital disc with Malcolm Martineau, also featuring the Belcea Quartet.

Jonathan is based in London

Download programme biography   

Contact

For availability and general enquiries:

Vincent Turp

Vincent Turp

Artist Manager
Alice Stacpoole

Alice Stacpoole

Assistant Artist Manager

Representation

Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

Follow Jonathan

Season Highlights

Apr 2024
Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Berlioz La Damnation de Faust (Brander) Kazuki Yamada (conductor) City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Jun 2024
The Grange Festival
Monteverdi L'incoronazione di Poppea (Seneca) David Bates (conductor) Walter Sutcliffe (director)
Sep 2024
Birmingham
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 Kazuki Yamada (conductor) City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Jan 2025 - Feb 2025
Royal Opera House
Jenufa (Mayor) Jakub Hrůša (conductor)
Apr 2025
St George's, Hanover Square - London Handel Festival
Floridante (Oronte) Christian Curnyn (conductor)
Jun 2025 - Jul 2025
Garsington
Fidelio (Rocco) Gérard Korsten (conductor)

Video

Photos

Download high resolution images

Selected Repertoire

Shostakovich

Symphony No. 14

News

Press

  • L’incoronazione di Poppea (Seneca)

    The Grange Festival
    Jun 2024 - Jun 2024

    • The sonorous bass of Jonathan Lemalu’s Seneca brought warmth of tone and character, but it was a shame the madrigal with which his friends bid him adieu was sung unseen from the wings.

    • Jonathan Lemalu is a commanding Seneca with an unwavering moral compass.

    • Jonathan Lemalu’s richly sonorous Seneca is a sombre and inward-looking presence among Nero’s frivolous, vicious imperial court;

    • The men were splendid, particularly Jonathan Lemalu’s velvety deep Seneca and Christopher Lowrey’s troubled and weak Ottone.

    • When you have such singers as Anna Bonitatibus and Jonathan Lemalu to cast as Ottavia and Seneca respectively, the temper of the production is bound to rise whenever they take the stage. Ottavia’s great lament for her rejected status and her anguished farewell to Rome were high points of the evening, just as Seneca’s perorations on life and death were not only superbly sung but deeply affecting.

    • On stage, Jonathan Lemalu is a joy, drawing us right into Seneca’s final moments, with an earthy voice to savour.

    • Wonderfully sensitive singing from American counter-tenor Christopher Lowrey as Ottone, and Samoan bass Jonathan Lemalu gave a superbly grounded presence to Nero’s tutor Seneca.

    • Christopher Lowery’s suitably wimpish but clear-voiced Ottone is a pawn in her hands. Jonathan Lemalu is a noble, stentorian Seneca

    • Como Seneca, Jonathan Lemalu impostó un seguro timbre y una dicción impecable en claridad y sentido.

    • Anna Bonitatibus gives a searing account of Ottavia without histrionics, while Jonathan Lemalu is an unruffled Seneca, benignly sonorous rather than stentorian.

  • The Magic Flute (Speaker)

    English National Opera
    Feb 2024

  • La Traviata (Doctor)

    English National Opera
    Oct 2023 - Nov 2023

  • Samson (Manoa)

    BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall
    Aug 2023

    • Jonathan Lemalu rarely disappoints, and his portrayal of Manoa (Samson’s father) contains moments of highest beauty (the accompanied recitative ‘Oh miserable change!’). Lemalu’s diction was a dream.

    • ...Jonathan Lemalu putting across the nobility of Manoa.

    • However, once we returned from the interval, the force of the drama started to intensify its grip. As Samson's father, Manoa, the New Zealand-born Samoan bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu marked the shift in tone with his exhortation that his son should "Trust in God!" that he would be freed.

    • As Samson's father, Manoa, Jonathan Lemalu was warm and dignified. Lemalu's approach was quite restrained, even in his opening dramatic recitative, 'Oh miserable change!', but this built throughout the performance, culminating in a finely touching account of 'How willing my paternal love'.

  • Magic Flute (Sarastro)

    Welsh National Opera
    Mar 2023 - May 2023

    • Jonathan Lemalu (Sarastro) provided a deep bass that was wonderful to listen to for its resonance and timbre...

    • Jonathan Lemalu’s Sarastro, a bewigged Enlightenment philosopher, was highly dignified...

    • ...at the lower end of the stave Jonathan Lemalu brought benevolence to a bewigged Sarastro, intermittently filling the stage with his cavernous low notes for the revised text of ‘O Isis und Osiris’ – altered to ‘sun and sky’.

  • Handel Alexander's Feast

    London Handel Festival with Laurence Cummings & London Handel Orchestra
    Feb 2023

    • Revealing a very firm bass, Jonathan Lemalu’s performance was extremely assured...

  • La damnation de Faust (Brander)

    London Philharmonic Orchestra with Edward Gardner
    Feb 2023

    • Nothing here features merely for local effect or comic relief: certainly not Brander’s pub song about the cocky but oven-ready-rat, given a sinister as well as jovial tinge by bass Jonathan Lemalu in a savoury cameo turn.

    • Jonathan Lemalu’s humorous appearance as Brander, he of the poisoned rat, was a terrific moment of comic value and underscored a fine vocal technique.

Discography