British bass Barnaby Rea is a former Harewood Artist at English National Opera (2013-16) who has recently joined the solo ensemble at Oper Frankfurt.

The ¹⁶⁄₁₇ season at Oper Frankfurt sees Barnaby undertake the roles of Lord Tristan Mickleford in Flotow’s Martha, a voice / Herald / Farmer in Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher with Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard and Saretzki in Eugene Onegin - all three new productions - as well as performing in revivals of Verdi’s Falstaff and Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress as Pistola and Keeper of the Madhouse respectively.

The ¹⁶⁄₁₇ season also sees him return to English National Opera as Sparafucile in Jonathan Miller’s much loved staging of Verdi’s Rigoletto and he appears as Hobson in concert performances of Britten’s Peter Grimes with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardiner at both the Bergen International Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival.

Other recent operatic highlights include Fabrizio Vingradito La Gazza Ladra (Oper Frankfurt), Basilio The Barber of Seville, Colline La Bohème, Lodovico Otello, Nourabad The Pearl Fishers, Ceprano Rigoletto, Second Priest / Second Armed Man The Magic Flute (English National Opera), Colline La Bohème (Opera North), Masetto Don Giovanni, Mother The Seven Deadly Sins (Scottish Opera), Alidoro La Cenerentola, Zaresky/Captain Eugene Onegin, Bonze Madam Butterfly, Rocco I Gioielli della Madonna (Opera Holland Park), Banquo Macbeth (Iford Opera).

Recent and future highlights on the concert platform include Verdi’s Requiem live on BBC Radio 3 with Barry Wordsworth at the Adrian Boult Hall in Birmingham, Mozart’s Requiem at London’s Royal Festival Hall, Vom Tod im Wald and the Mahagonny Songspiel at Kings Place concert hall in London with the Continuum Ensemble and Mother The Seven Deadly Sins at the National Concert Hall in Dublin with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra - all works by Kurt Weill. Barnaby also live recorded Bob Beckett HMS Pinafore at the Edinburgh International Festival under the baton of Richard Egarr.

Barnaby trained at the National Opera Studio where he was supported by Scottish Opera and a Sybil Tutton Award administered by the Musicians Benevolent and before that graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied on the highly acclaimed opera course and was generously supported by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, the Musicians Benevolent Fund, the Wingate foundation, the Hope Chest, Serena Fenwick, Towergate and the Worshipful Company of Gold & Silver Wyre Drawers. He continues to study under the guidance of John Evans. Operatic roles towards the end of his time at GSMD included Bottom/Theseus in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Barbican Theatre, Falstaff in Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Dr. Gibbs in the European premiere of Ned Rorem’s Our Town (GSMD) and Collatinus The Rape of Lucretia (British Youth Opera).