Keenlyside, Simon
Keenlyside, Simon
Keenlyside, Simon, English baritone; b. London, Aug. 3, 1959. He studied at St. John’s Choir School in Cambridge, took a degree in zoology at the Univ. of Cambridge, and received vocal instruction from John Cameron at the Royal Northern Coll. of Music in Manchester, where he made his operatic debut as Lescaut in 1987. In 1986 he won the Richard Tauber Competition. Following a season with the Hamburg State Opera (1988–89), he joined the Scottish Opera in Glasgow, where he sang Rossini’s Figaro in 1991 and Britten’s Billy Budd in 1992. In 1989 he made his debut at London’s Covent Garden as Silvio, and returned there as Guglielmo in 1995. He sang Gluck’s Oreste at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff in 1991. In 1993 he appeared as Don Giovanni with the Glyndebourne Touring Opera. In 1995 he portrayed Papageno at Milan’s La Scala, and returned to Italy in 1997 to sing Don Giovanni. He appeared as Belcore at the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y. in 1996, the same year that he sang Thomas’s Hamlet in Geneva. In 1997 he sang Pelléas at the San Francisco Opera. In 1998 he was engaged as Monteverdi’s Orfeo in Brussels and in 1999 as Marcello at the Vienna State Opera. He also was active as a lieder artist.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire