British bass David Shipley is a graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. His roles for The Royal Opera include Nightwatchman (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Antinoo (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria), Zuniga (Carmen), Arthur and Officer III (The Lighthouse), Captain (Eugene Onegin), Sciarrone (Tosca), Guccio (Gianni Schicchi), High Priest of Baal Nabucco, Second Armed Man (Die Zauberflöte), and Dr Grenvil (La Traviata).

In the 2023/24 season he sings Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Teatro Carlo Felice Genova, followed by performances at the Royal Opera House Muscat (Oman), Pietro in Simon Boccanegra for Opera Rara and Timur in Turandot for his Opernhaus Zürich debut.

Recent operatic highlights include Sparafucile in Rigoletto (Theater Basel), Somnus in Semele (Komische Oper Berlin) , John Pinney, Alexander Morris, Pin-Striped Man in Will Todd’s Migrations (Welsh National Opera), Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Scottish Opera); Dr Grenvil in La Traviata (The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden); Harapha in Samson (The English Concert at London Handel Festival); Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte (Glyndebourne Festival Opera); Sparafucile in Rigoletto (Scottish Opera and his US operatic debut at Houston Grand Opera); Truffaldino in Ariadne auf Naxos (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Festival d’Aix en Provence); Prince Tokmakov in Ivan the Terrible and Monk in Don Carlo (Grange Park Opera); Lieutenant Ratcliffe in Billy Budd (Teatro Dell’Opera di Roma); Colline in La Bohème, Pistola in Falstaff and Zuniga in Carmen (Verbier Festival); Sandoval in Le duc d’Albe (Vlaanderen Opera); Commendatore in Don Giovanni (The Mozartists); and Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro (Amersham Music Festival).

Concert highlights include Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Beethoven’s Mass in C (Al Bustan Festival, Beirut); Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the BBC Proms, and Monteverdi’s Vespers and Handel’s Dixit Dominus at the Salzburg Festival (all with the Monteverdi Choir under Sir John Eliot Gardiner); and Tirésias on the London Symphony Orchestra’s critically acclaimed ‘LSO Live’ recording of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Elsewhere, he has performed at venues including Paris’s Salle Pleyel, Barcelona’s L’Auditori, the Kölner Philharmonie, Kings Place, Cadogan Hall, the Barbican, Christ Church Spitalfields, and the Royal Albert Hall, and with ensembles and conductors including the London Symphony Orchestra, The Mozartists, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Andrew Davis and Sir Mark Elder.

Shipley is a graduate of the opera course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with Janice Chapman. He previously studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded first-class BMus (Hons) and MA degrees, as well as a DipRAM. In 2008 he won the Kathleen Ferrier Bursary for Young Singers.