“There is amongst the cast one unequivocally great voice: that of James Creswell, the best American bass I’ve heard since Sam Ramey debuted at Glyndebourne in the late 1970s, magnificently rich, dark and wholly secure, with flawless emission – and of quite thrilling scale.” (Opera Britannia)
American bass James Creswell has established himself as one of the leading basses of his generation. Born in Seattle Washington, James graduated from Yale University and his early career included apprenticeships with Los Angeles Opera and San Francisco Opera until moving to Germany as a soloist with the Komische Opera Berlin.
Mr Creswell has appeared at the Dutch National Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Bilbao Opera, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt, Theater an der Wien, Opéra de Bordeaux, Angers-Nantes Opéra, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera, Edinburgh International Festival, Nederlandse Reisopera, Tallinn Festival, Ravinia Festival and Bergen International Festival.
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His repertoire of operatic roles includes Dutchman and Daland (Der fliegende Holländer), Hunding (Die Walkure), Fasolt (Das Rheingold), King Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Gurnemanz and Titurel (Parsifal), A Blind Ballad Singer (Gloriana), Seneca (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Achilla (Giulio Cesare), Zoroastro (Orlando), Thoas (Handel’s Oreste), Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Commendatore, Masetto, and Leporello (Don Giovanni), Speaker and Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Rocco (Fidelio), Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Hermit (Der Freischütz), Oroveso (Norma), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Wurm (Luisa Miller), Ferrando (Il trovatore), Padre Guardiano (La forza del destino), Monk (Don Carlo), King (Aida), Méphistophélès (Faust), Capulet (Roméo et Juliette), Kecal (The Bartered Bride), Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Escamillo (Carmen), Bonze (Madama Butterfly), Angelotti (Tosca), Timur (Turandot), Nazarene (Salome), Kammersänger (Intermezzo), Mayor (Jenůfa), Dr Kolenatý (The Makropulos Affair), Little Prisoner (From the House of the Dead), Dansker (Billy Budd), Father (Britten’s The Prodigal Son), Pharisee (Mark Adamo’s The Gospel of Mary Magdalene), Gian Corrado Orsini (Ginastera’s Bomarzo), Le Comte des Grieux (Manon) First Nazarener (Salome) and Grandfather Frost (Snegurotchka).
Mr Creswell is also very much in demand on the concert stage. His previous performances include staged performances of Mozart Requiem at the Komisch Oper Berlin, King Mark in Tristan und Isolde with the Bremer Philharmoniker, Brahms’ Requiem in Lisbon, Messiah for the Bergen Festival, Mozart Requiem in Amsterdam, Mahler Symphony No. 8, Dvorak St. Ludmilla and Schoenberg Gurrelieder for the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder, St Matthew Passion at the Cincinnati May Festival under James Conlon and Verdi Requiem for the Huddersfield Choral Society under Vasily Petrenko, Deutsche Symphonie Orchester as Jesus and Bass Soloist in performances of Bach’s St. John’s Passion with Kent Nagano, Gurrelieder with the Bergen Philharmonic under Edward Gardner and Tippet’s A Child of our Time and Rocco in Fidelio for the BBC Proms.
Engagements for the 2017/18 season include; Il Marchese di Calatrava in La Forza del destino for Dutch National Opera; Comte des Grieux in Manon for San Francisco Opera; Teatro Real in Madrid for Gloriana; Sarastro in Die Zauberflote for Garsington Opera.
September 2017
