Opie, Alan (John)
Opie, Alan (John)
Opie, Alan (John), English baritone; b. Redruth, Cornwall, March 22, 1945. He received training at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and at the London Opera Centre. In 1969 he made his operatic debut as Papageno at the Sadler’s Wells Opera in London, where he was its principal bass in 1973–74 and its successor, the English National Opera from 1974 to 1996. He made his U.S. operatic debut as Tony in The Globolinks at the Santa Fe Opera in 1970. In 1971 he sang for the first time at London’s Covent Garden in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, where his later appearances included Hector in King Priam (1985), Mangus in The Knot Garden (1988), Falke (1989), Sharpless (1993), and Faninal (1995). He made his debut at the Glyndebourne Festival as Sid in Albert Herring in 1985, and returned there as Mozart’s Figaro in 1991 and as Birtten’s Balstrode in 1992. In 1994 he sang the latter role at the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y., and in 1997 he returned there as Sharpless. On Oct. 2, 1996, he created the title role in Berio’s Outis at Milan’s La Scala.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire