Baritone

Phillip Rhodes

Rigoletto

Biography

UK-based New Zealand baritone Phillip Rhodes was the winner of the 2005 New Zealand Aria Competition and was awarded second place at the International Montserrat Caballe Competition in 2008. He is a former Emerging Artist with New Zealand Opera and has since appeared regularly with the company in principal roles, most recently as the title role of Verdi’s Macbeth.

This season he returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Don Fernando in Beethoven’s Fidelio, sings Count Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto at Irish National Opera, a series of opera arias concerts with Welsh National Opera, and further ahead he will return to Opera Australia and to the Auckland Philharmonia.

Recent highlights include Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata (Opera Australia, Scottish Opera); Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen (Royal Opera House, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, The Grange Festival, Scottish Opera); his role debut as Figaro in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North); Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto (Royal Opera House); Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca (Nederlandse Reisopera); Father in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff (Scottish Opera); Speaker in Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Welsh National Opera); Jud Fry in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (Grange Park Opera); and King in Massenet’s Le Cid (Dorset Opera).

In his native New Zealand, he has recently appeared as Don Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio in concert with Auckland Philharmonia; and as Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s La traviata and Enrico in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor for Wellington Opera.

October 2024