THOMAS ALLEN
Thomas Allen is a star of all the important operatic centres - La Scala, Milan, the Vienna and Munich State Operas, Salzburg Festival, Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, where new productions are regularly mounted for him. He accompanied the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, on their historic tour to America with Die Zauberflöte and on their recent tour to Japan with Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro . He has also sung with the Bavarian State Opera in Japan (Le nozze di Fiqaro and Arabella) and in Spain (Don Giovanni) . He is a regular guest artist with the leading American and European orchestras, and a much-acclaimed recitalist world-wide.
His recent engagements have included new productions of The Cunning Little Vixen, Capriccio, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Covent Garden; Il barbiere di Siviglia and Die Fledermaus at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Le nozze di Figaro in Los Angeles, Iphigénie en Tauride and Don Giovanni at La Scala; Don Giovanni and La Traviata in Munich; The Cunninq Little Vixen in Paris; Le nozze di Figaro at the Salzburg Easter and Summer Festivals; Il barbiere di Siviglia, Madama Butterfly and Death in Venice at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and Don Carlos in San Francisco. His huge repertoire also includes Monteverdi's Ulysses , Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin , Verdi's Ford (Falstaff ), Posa (Don Carlos ) and Germont (La Traviata ), Thomas' Hamlet and Britten's Billy Budd - a role he has made his own in London and New York. His performance as Busoni's Doctor Faustus won the Laurence Olivier Award in 1986. Thomas Allen is, above all, renowned as a Mozartian: his Count Almaviva, Papageno, Guglielmo and Don Giovanni have been heard all over the world, and his vast discography includes all his great operatic roles plus the great symphonic and song repertoire under Solti, Levine, Marriner, Haitink, Rattle, Sawallisch and Muti.
Thomas Allen was born in the North of England in Seaham Harbour in County Durham. His many honours include degrees from Newcastle and Durham Universities, and in the 1989 New Year's Honours he was invested as a Commander of the British Empire (CBE).
Sir Thomas Allen was awarded a knighthood in the 1999 Queen's Birthday Honours list.
