Andrew Staples

Andrew Staples sang as a chorister in St Paul’s Cathedral before winning a Choral Scholarship to King’s College Cambridge, where he gained a degree in Music.  Andrew was the first recipient of the RCM Peter Pears Scholarship, sponsored by the Britten Pears Foundation, at the Royal College of Music and subsequently joined the Benjamin Britten International Opera School.  He studies with Ryland Davies.   

His concert engagements include Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri with both the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle and the Swedish Radio with Daniel Harding; John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple in New York; Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Mozart’s Requiem with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, both conducted by Andrew Manze; the Gävle Symphony and Robin Ticciati; the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Sir Simon Rattle; and the London Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding.

On stage he has performed Aret in Haydn’s Philemon und Baucis for the 2003 Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, conducted by Trevor Pinnock.  He performed the role of Haliate in the Royal College of Music production of Handel’s Sosarme in conjunction with the London Handel Festival, conducted by Laurence Cummings and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) with Andrew Parrott and the London Mozart Players.  For the BBIOS he sang Male Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia), Ferrando (Cosi fan tutte) and Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus) and he sang Nencio (Haydn’s L’Infedelta delusa) for English Touring Opera.  He sang his first Tamino for Opera Holland Park. He has appeared regularly with the Classical Opera Company, of which he is an Associate Artist.

He made his Royal Opera House debut as Jacquino (Fidelio), returning for First Armed Man (Die Zauberflöte), Artabenes (Arne’s Artaxerxes) and Narraboth (Salome) and sang Belfiore (La Finta Giardiniera) for the National Theatre, Prague (a role he will repeat in the same production for La Monnaie in Brussels) and Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for Garsington Opera.  In concert he appears with the Gavle Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Robin Ticciati, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Swedish Radio Orchestra both with Daniel Harding and the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle.