baritone
enquiry@stephengadd.com
Enquiries are especially welcome from UK-based choral societies for oratorio and other concert performances.
Together with pianist Stephen Barlow, Stephen Gadd offers a Lieder recital programme featuring works by Hugo Wolf, Frank Martin, and Alban Berg.
Stephen Gadd is an English baritone working internationally on the operatic stage and concert platform. Winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship and finalist in the inaugural Plácido Domingo Operalia Competition, he began singing as a boy chorister at Coventry Cathedral and a choral scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, and then studied with Patrick McGuigan at the Royal Northern College of Music.
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His operatic engagements have included performances for the Royal Opera (Covent Garden), Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Opéra national de Paris, Salzburg Festival, Baden Baden Festival, Netherlands Opera, Finnish National Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Holland Park, English National Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera and Welsh National Opera, in repertoire including the title roles in Macbeth and Rigoletto, Giorgio Germont La Traviata, Conte di Luna Il Trovatore, Jack Rance La Fanciulla del West, Sharpless Madama Butterfly, Scarpia Tosca, Michele Il Tabarro, Balstrode Peter Grimes, Mr Redburn Billy Budd, Count Almaviva Le Nozze di Figaro, Father Hänsel und Gretel, and Kurwenal Tristan und Isolde. Future engagements include Bartolo Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Sir Richard Cholmondeley Yeomen of the Guard for Opera Holland Park, and Guglielmo Le Villi for Chelsea Opera Group.
Stephen Gadd’s recordings include Mahler Das Lied von der Erde with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jonathan Nott (Tudor SACD), Euryanthe with the Orchestra of Polish Radio conducted by Łukasz Borowicz (nominated for a 2012 International Classical Music Award), Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel (Signum) and with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, Mozart Coronation Mass and Vesperae Solemnes de Confessore and Purcell Dioclesian with The English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock (Deutsche Grammophon), and Vaughan Williams Hodie and Fantasia on Christmas Carols with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton (Naxos).
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Reviews
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde / Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Tudor CD
“Why has no previous baritone, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau included, ever convinced me that Mahler’s option for an alternative voice-type to a mezzo in three of his song-symphony settings really works, while Stephen Gadd proves the exception? Best of all, Gadd injects real, tearful emotion into the great releases of the ‘Farewell.’ – I was more moved here than by Kaufmann.”
BBC Music Magazine
Lysiart: Euryanthe / PRCD CD
“All the cast not only have crystal-clear diction, but inflect and colour the text in conjunction with expressive musical phrasing, no more than Gadd, whose Lysiart comes pinging off the disc as a three-dimensional character in a thrilling impersonation.”
Opera
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Jack Rance: La Fanciulla del West / Grange Park Opera
“With his clear-toned baritone and consistently excellent acting, Stephen Gadd shines as Sheriff Rance.”
The Independent
“His vengeful, vulnerable Rance was sung with a bleak, nihilistic awareness that held the evening together.”
Opera
Kurwenal: Tristan und Isolde / Grange Park Opera
“Stephen Gadd, as Kurwenal, made loyalty sound endlessly engrossing.”
The Observer
“Stephen Gadd made a strong Kurwenal. Robust and no-nonsense, yet this was one of the most beautifully sung accounts of the role that I have heard. Gadd really made the intimacy of the theatre tell, and though his performance was relatively static it was full of telling and dynamic details which brought the role to life. It was a relief, … to see a performer who knew how to do very little on stage yet really make it count.”
Planet Hugill
Il Barbiere di Siviglia / Opera Holland Park
“Stephen Gadd brings bluster and humanity to Bartolo.”
The Guardian
“Stephen Gadd’s Doctor Bartolo was less of a buffoon than usual, and perhaps all the more dangerous for it. Inclined to stand on his dignity, Gadd’s Bartolo was a comic creation that used character more than physical comedy and character rooted in the music. Gadd’s delivery of Bartolo’s Act One aria was engaging, and throughout Gadd showed himself deft with Bartolo’s patter yet always with that self-importance.”
Planet Hugill
“Stephen Gadd’s acting and singing flowed in perfect unison with the score of the demanding role of Dr Bartolo.”
PlaysToSee.com
Macbeth / Buxton Festival Opera
“Stephen Gadd, whose performance as a whole rises to a true sense of tragic grandeur: he has scrutinised text and music to achieve an interpretation whose overall emotional arc and nuanced detail are worthy not only of Verdi but of Shakespeare too.”
The Stage
“Stephen Gadd made a heroic Macbeth, physically powerful and expressive of inner torment, as well as the master of a firm legato line.“
The Telegraph
“Stephen Gadd inhabited Macbeth with chilling sensuality and greed; … wielded his strong, luscious baritone with exquisite dramatic instinct.”
Bachtrack
“Stephen Gadd gives a gripping, raging-bull performance…”
The Times
“Gadd’s enthralling achievement…“
Opera
Sharpless: Madama Butterfly / Grange Park Opera
“Stephen Gadd’s Sharpless was as sympathetically portrayed as I can ever recall. His strong contributions to the duet ‘Dovunque al mondo’ and the Act II trio make one regret that Puccini didn’t give Sharpless an aria. Finely nuanced acting drew the eye so that the American Consul was the one character who could foresee the events which unfolded.”
Opera Britannia
“Stephen Gadd cleans up comprehensively with his finely judged account of the American consul, Sharpless.”
The Stage
Melot: Tristan und Isolde / Dallas Opera
“English Baritone Stephen Gadd as Melot, in his American debut is impressive. His elegant baritone voice and acting abilities enrich this all-star cast.”
The Examiner
“Stephen Gadd as Melot gives us also a complex character that fascinates. He could easily be played as a villain since he eventually mortally wounds Tristan. Mr. Gadd gives his character such resonance that his motive in doing so is fully realized. Vocally he too commands the stage.”
Pegasus News
Macbeth / Glyndebourne On Tour
“Stephen Gadd’s Macbeth is a tower of strength. Not only is he in perfect vocal command of the role, but there is plenty of nuance both in his singing and his acting. His realisation is an exceptional achievement.”
The Stage
“Macbeth, Stephen Gadd, was the more magnetic of the pair. His career has so far been centred largely on mainland Europe, and this performance suggested that this has been the UK’s loss – he has a forward, resonant baritone and an easy presence onstage.”
Opera
Conte di Luna: Il trovatore / Opera Holland Park
“Stephen Gadd’s truly aristocratic, beautifully sung Luna – just the sort of baritone voice with which Verdi was in love.”
The Times
Giorgio Germont: La traviata / Opera Holland Park
“…this excellent lyric baritone once again showed his international class, with mellifluous singing and sophisticated acting and a much more rounded portrait of old Germont than we usually get.”
The Daily Mail
Giorgio Germont: La traviata / Scottish Opera
“Stephen Gadd’s experienced, utterly dependable Germont – capturing the severity of the bourgeois paterfamilias without turning the character into a stereotype…”
Opera
“Stephen Gadd’s commanding Giorgio Germont oozes self-importance.”
The Stage
Rigoletto / Opera Holland Park
“Stephen Gadd gives a compelling performance and is sympathetic in all the character’s conflicting emotions…”
The Telegraph
The Apostles / City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
“…most uplifting was Stephen Gadd, who brought Jesus gloriously to life in The Apostles. A voice full of character, warmth and intensity, his ‘Beatitudes’ were out of this world.”
The Independent
Haydn: The Creation / Ulster Orchestra
“It was quite impossible not to be entranced by the narrative especially of baritone Stephen Gadd whose voice particularly in his top register was beautifully resonant.”
Belfast Telegraph
Don Giovanni / Angers Nantes Opéra
“Stephen Gadd made a striking impact as a seducer both blasé and decadent, gifted with a voice of real quality, suave and inviting in the serenade and meeting the difficulties of ‘Fin ch’han del vino’ with an easy rarely encountered.”
Res Musica
“Stephen Gadd was a Don Giovanni magnificent in legerity and insouciance, constantly holding one’s attention with his stage presence, his movement and his expression. He was totally at ease in this staging, both refined and theatrical.”
Ouest France
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Recordings
Beethoven Der glorreiche Augenblick
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Hilary Davan Wetton
Naxos CD 8.572783
Blackford Pietà
Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra / Gavin Carr
Nimbus Alliance CD NI 6396
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Blackford Babel
Ikon Singers and Ensemble / David Hill
Lyrita CD SRCD432
Blackford Not in Our Time
Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra / Gavin Carr
Nimbus CD NI 6161
Blackford Vision of a Garden
Bach Choir, Philharmonia Orchestra / David Hill
Lyrita CD SRCD406
Hindemith Cardillac (role of Chief of Military Police)
Paris National Opera Chorus and Orchestra / Kent Nagano
Bel Air Classiques DVD W BACO23
Mahler Das Lied von der Erde
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Jonathan Nott
Tudor CD 7202
Mahler Symphony No. 8
London Philharmonic Orchestra / Vladimir Jurowski
LPO CD LPO-0121
Mahler Symphony No. 8
Philharmonia Orchestra / Lorin Maazel
Signum CD SIGCD 362
Mozart Coronation Mass; Vesperae solemnes de confessore
The English Concert & Choir / Trevor Pinoock
DG 445 353 2
Puccini La Fanciulla del West (role of Sonora)
Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra / Carlo Rizzi
Opus Arte Blu Ray OA BD7075 D
Purcell Dioclesian
The English Concert & Choir/ Trevor Pinnock
DG CD 4746722
Schreker Die Gezeichneten (role of Paolo Calvi)
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Kent Nagano
EuroArts DVD 2055298
Sullivan The Beauty Stone (role of Simon Limal)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Rory Macdonald
Chandos CD CHAN 10794
Sullivan Ivanhoe (role of Prince John)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales / David Lloyd-Jones
Chandos CD 10578
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols; Hodie
Guildford Choral Society
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Hilary Davan Wetton
Naxos CD 8.570439
Wagner Tristan und Isolde (role of Melot)
London Philharmonic Orchestra / Jiří Bĕlohlávek
Opus Arte DVD 101 325
Weber Euryanthe (role of Lysiart)
Polish Radio Symphony 0rchestra / Łukasz Borowicz
PRCD 1354-1356
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