During the 2011/12 season Simon Bailey will sing Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and Siroco in Chabrier’s L’Étoile - both role debuts in new productions.. He will also be singing Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte) and Leporello (Don Giovanni) again. This British bass baritone studied at Cambridge University and the Royal Northern College of Music. His first major role was Mozart’s Figaro, with which he enjoyed great success in London in 1999 alongside his now wife, Anna Ryberg, as Susanna. During the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro he was heard by a talent scout from La Scala Milan which resulted in his joining the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala. Simon Bailey joined the Ensemble at Oper Frankfurt in 2002 and won 1st Prize at the 2004 Musica Sacra Competition in Rome. His most important roles in Frankfurt have included Méphistophélès (The Damnation of Faust), Don Magnifico/Alidoro (La Cenerentola), Dulcamara (L’elisir d’amore), Claudio (Agrippina), Basilio/Bartolo (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Lord Sidney/Don Profondo (Il viaggio a Reims), Don Inigo Gomez (Ravel’s Die spanische Stunde/L’Heure espagnole), Sarvaor (de Falla’s Das kurze Leben/La vida breve), Animal Trainer/Athlete (Lulu), Orest (Elektra) and Mozart’s Figaro, Don Giovanni and Papageno. At the end of the 2010/11 season he sang Créon (role debut) in a new production of Charpentier’s Médée in the Bockenheimer Depot. Recent guest engagements have included Donizetti’s Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali at La Scala Milan in 2009/10, Ariadne auf Naxos at the Theater an der Wien in the autumn of 2010 and Michaël Levinas’ La Métamorphose at the Opéra de Lille in early 2011.

Find out more about Simon Bailey and Anna Ryberg on their homepage.