Thomas Guthrie

Thomas Guthrie is an English baritone who began to take starring roles in opera around the turn of the millenium. His University studies were in Classics, at Cambridge. After graduation, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, which he entered in 1993. While still a student, he sang the part of Mister Gedge in a production of Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring. He also sang the part of the Duke in The Gondoliers for Cambridge Chamber Opera. Other parts include Simone (Puccini's Gianni Schicchi), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), and Papageno in The Magic Flute for the Opera Theatre Company. He has also been a member of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera Chorus. He received an ESU Scholarship enabling him to study with Thomas Allen in Chicago. For Jessye's Fund he has appeared in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni and as the Count in The Marriage of Figaro. He sang and recorded the role of Denisov (Pierre Bezukhov's good-hearted soldier friend) in Prokofiev's War and Peace at the 1999 Spoleto Festival under Richard Hickox, a production that has been recorded by Britain's Chandos label. He is most at home in lyrical baritone roles, and has quickly gained a strong reputation as a song recital and concert singer. He is one of a newer breed of oratorio singers who have left behind the old Germanic stereotype of dry, academic voices in such works and instead interpret their parts with lyricism and dramatic values. He performed in a staged and televised performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion as Judas, a production directed by Jonathan Miller. On Good Friday 2000, he participated in the traditional BBC Radio 3 national broadcast of Bach's St. John Passion, which originated live in concert from St John's Smith Square. He has also given acclaimed renditions of Schubert's major song cycles Der Winterreise and Die Schöne Müllerin. He has become a regular soloist with the ensemble Florilegium. On records, besides the Prokofiev opera, he has released a set of Purcell Odes on the Naxos label with the Orchestra of the Golden Age, and a highly acclaimed recording of Bach secular cantatas with New Chamber Opera on the ASV label. He was also scheduled to participate in Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Bach 2000 Project, to record Die Schöne Müllerin and Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebter with Gary Cooper on fortepiano, to sing with the Bampton Classical Opera, and to record Biber motets with Sonnerie on ASV. He regularly tours throughout Britain and Europe. He should not be confused with Guthrie Thomas, an American popular singer/songwriter.