Peter Knapp

Peter Knapp has been singing all his life, initially as a Cathedral chorister at St Albans, and then as a choral scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he read English. He studied singing privately in London and Italy, where he worked with the distinguished Italian baritone, Tito Gobbi, and made his professional solo debut as Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro with the Glyndebourne Tour. With English National Opera at the London Coliseum, he sang the title roles in Don Giovanni, and at Sadler’s Wells, King Roger in Szymanowski’s opera, under Charles Mackerras. With Kent Opera he sang the title roles in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (filmed by BBC Television), Eugene Onegin and Don Giovanni, as well as Germont in La Traviata. Success in international competitions led to his singing roles abroad, including Nabucco, Macbeth and Rigoletto, Di Luna in Il Trovatore, Ford in Falstaff, Marcello in La Bohème and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly. In Italy, he sang Orfeo again in the Maggio Musicale, Florence, and in Venice sang operas by Britten and Handel, while back in the UK he created the role of Maxim in Joseph’s opera Rebecca for Opera North. Musical theatre work has included Weill’s Happy End (BBC Television) and Porter’s Kiss Me Kate, and he also presents his own cabaret-style shows, All You Ever Wanted to Know About Opera and Can’t Help Singing! As a concert singer, he has appeared with many leading orchestras and conductors, including the Berlin Philharmonic, and as a recitalist, he has given numerous broadcasts of German, French and English song on BBC Radio 3.

Always dedicated to training new generations of performers, he was Director of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music, set up British Youth Opera and created his own touring company, which presented opera and musical theatre throughout the UK, including London seasons at Sadler’s Wells and the South Bank and Barbican Concert Halls.

He has taught at Trinity Laban for over 20 years and has also worked at The Drama Centre at Central St Martin’s and as a voice and language teacher at the Universities of Cambridge, City and Sussex.