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; Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Akademisten Berlin and Sir Simon Rattle and Magdalena Kozena; John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple in New York; Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze; Britten’s War Requiem at the King’s College Chapel with David Hill; Mozart’s Requiem with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Andrew Manze; the Gävle Symphony and Robin Ticciati; the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Sir Simon Rattle; the London Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding; the Bavarian Radio Symphony with Daniel Harding and Simon Rattle; the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin; and the Accademia Santa Cecilia with Semyon Bychkov.
He made his Royal Opera House debut as Jacquino (Fidelio), returning for Flamand (Capriccio), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Artabenes (Arne’s Artaxerxes) and Narraboth (Salome). He sang Belfiore (La Finta Giardiniera) for the National Theatre, Prague (a role he repeated in the same production for La Monnaie in Brussels), Ferrando for Opera Holland Park, and Narraboth for the Hamburgische Staatsoper. He also semi-staged and sang Tamino in Die Zauberflöte for the Lucerne Festival and in Drottningholm with Daniel Harding conducting.
He will sing Kudrjas and Luzio (Das Liebesverbot) for both the Royal Opera House and the Teatro Real in Madrid, Don Ottavio for the Salzburger Festspiele, and Tamino in Chicago. In concert he appears with the Swedish Radio Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony and the Berliner Philharmoniker with Daniel Harding, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Semyon Bychkov, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Wiener Philharmoniker with Simon Rattle, and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
His recent venture, Opera for Change, has taken Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte on tour in Africa. A company of around 50 singers, musicians and crew travel from Nairobi to Cape Town, covering ten countries in total. The idea behind it is to bring together international musicians and performers alongside local artists and communities, to produce great shows that aim to inspire and transform lives. The project has had high praise from the Telegraph Opera Critic Rupert Christiansen.
