David Butt Philip
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David Butt Philip (born 12 March 1980) is a British operatic tenor.


Early life and education

He was born and brought up in Wells, Somerset, and as a treble was a chorister at Peterborough Cathedral under Christopher Gower (Peterborough at that time had a boarding house for choristers, attached to The King's School, Peterborough, a state comprehensive school). After Peterborough, he attended
Charlottesville High School Charlottesville High School is a public high school in the independent city of Charlottesville, Virginia, serving students from 9th to 12th grade. It is a part of Charlottesville City Public Schools. It is the second largest high school in the ...
, Virginia USA for six months before returning to complete his secondary education at the Wells Blue School. After studying politics and philosophy, and then music at the University of Liverpool, Butt Philip studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and sang as a vicar choral in Manchester Cathedral choir and with the BBC Singers. He studied as a baritone on the postgraduate opera course at the Royal Academy of Music and was a member of the Glyndebourne chorus, where he was encouraged by the conductor Vladimir Jurowski among others to change to singing tenor. He won Glyndebourne's John Christie Award in 2011 and went on to study as a tenor at the National Opera Studio, London.


Career

From 2012-2014 he was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the
Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...
, Covent Garden, London. With
The Royal Opera The Royal Opera is a British opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Along with English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent G ...
, Butt Philip has sung First Chevalier/Master of Ceremonies in ''
Robert le diable ''Robert le diable'' (''Robert the Devil'') is an opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer between 1827 and 1831, to a libretto written in French by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne. ''Robert le diable'' is regarded as one of the first ...
'', Abdallo in ''
Nabucco ''Nabucco'' (; short for ''Nabucodonosor'' , i.e. "Nebuchadnezzar II, Nebuchadnezzar") is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on the biblic ...
'', First Man in Armour in ''
Die Zauberflöte ''The Magic Flute'' (, ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. It is a ''Singspiel'', a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on ...
'', Master of Ceremonies in ''
Gloriana ''Gloriana'', Op. 53, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten to an English libretto by William Plomer, based on Lytton Strachey's 1928 ''Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History''. The first performance was presented at the Royal Opera Hou ...
''. He sang the role of Pang in Puccini's ''
Turandot ''Turandot'' ( ; see #Origin and pronunciation of the name, below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. Puccini left the opera unfinished at the time of his death in 1924; it ...
'' in 2014, Servant in ''
Capriccio Capriccio may refer to: __NOTOC__ Music * Capriccio (music), a piece of music which is fairly free in form * Fantasia in C major (Haydn), "Capriccio", a 1789 piano composition by Joseph Haydn * Capriccio (Janáček), a chamber music composition by ...
'', Apparition of a Youth in ''
Die Frau ohne Schatten ' (''The Woman without a Shadow''), Op. 65, is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917. When it premiered at the V ...
'' and Commissary in ''
Dialogues des Carmelites ' (, ''Dialogues of the Carmelites''), FP 159, is an opera in three acts, divided into twelve scenes with linking orchestral interludes, with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc, completed in 1956. Poulenc wrote the libretto for his second o ...
''. He sang Rodolfo in ''
La Bohème ''La bohème'' ( , ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions '':wikt:quadro, quadri'', ''wikt:tableau, tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto b ...
'' with
English National Opera English National Opera (ENO) is a British opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in E ...
at the London Coliseum in Autumn 2014 and with
English Touring Opera English Touring Opera (ETO) is an opera company in the United Kingdom founded in 1979 under the name Opera 80 by the then-existing Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1992 the company changed to its present name. Today it is sponsored in part by A ...
in Spring 2015. He sang Grigori in
Boris Godunov Boris Feodorovich Godunov (; ; ) was the ''de facto'' regent of Russia from 1585 to 1598 and then tsar from 1598 to 1605 following the death of Feodor I, the last of the Rurik dynasty. After the end of Feodor's reign, Russia descended into t ...
at the
Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...
in March 2016 ("strikingly well sung" according to the
Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unit ...
), and Pinkerton in ''
Madama Butterfly ''Madama Butterfly'' (; ''Madame Butterfly'') is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is based on the short story " Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Lu ...
'' with ENO in Summer 2016. Butt Philip is represented by the agency Ingpen and Williams.


References

Living people English operatic tenors 1980 births People from Wells, Somerset 21st-century British male opera singers 21st-century English singers 21st-century British male singers {{UK-opera-singer-stub