Alastair Miles is internationally recognised as one of
the world’s leading basses. Born in Harrow, he originally studied flute
at the Guildhall School of Music before embarking on his highly
successful vocal career. Having won the Decca Kathleen Ferrier Award at
the age of 25, he has subsequently been in worldwide demand for
principal bass roles over the last two decades.
Mr. Miles has a stylistically wide repertoire, equally
at home with Baroque music as he is with the full-blooded romanticism of
Verdi. Highlights in his career have included Sparafucile Rigoletto,
Giorgio I Puritani and Raimondo Lucia di Lammermoor
for the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Basilio Il Barbiere di
Siviglia for San Francisco Opera, Cardinal Brogni La Juive,
Prefetto in Linda di Chamounix, Zaccaria in Nabucco
and Philippe II in Don Carlos for the Wiener Staatsoper, Lord
Sydney in Il Viaggio a Rheims at La Scala, Milan, title role
Handel Saul and Zoroastro in Orlando for the
Bayerische Staatsoper, title role Le Nozze di Figaro and La
Juive for Netherlands Opera. In the UK Alastair Miles appears
regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden where his roles have
included Colline La bohème, Rodolfo in La Sonnambula,
Elmiro in Rossini’s Otello, Banquo in Macbeth and
Dom Juam de Sylva in Donizetti’s Dom Sebastien. Further UK
appearances have included title role in Boito’s Mefistofele
and Silva in Ernani for English National Opera, Mephistopheles
in Faust and Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra for Welsh National
Opera, Philip II in Don Carlo for Opera North and Speaker in Die
Zauberflöte for Glyndebourne. Recent engagements include Narbal
in Les Troyens for Netherlands Opera, Creonte in Mayr’s Medea
in Corinto for Bayerische Staatsoper, Elijah at the Royal
Festival Hall with Masur and the London Philarmonic Orchestra, Beethoven
9th Symphony with Wiener Symphoniker, Nabucco for
Wiener Staatsoper, Commendatore in Don Giovanni for
Glyndebourne Festival, Poliferno in Steffani’s Niobe, Regina
di Tebe for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Osmin in Die
Entführung aus dem Serail on tour with the OAE (Labadie), Duke
Alfonso Lucrezia Borgia for English National Opera and Pogner
Die Meistersinger for Glyndebourne Festival.
Alastair Miles is also a highly sought after concert
artist and has appeared with the world’s leading orchestras and
conductors, including Giulini, Muti, Harnoncourt, Chung, Rattle,
Runnicles, Masur, Gergiev, Gardiner, Norrington, Davis and Dohnanyi.
Recent projects have included La Damnation de
Faust, Dream of Gerontius and Messiah with
Sir Colin Davis and London Symphony Orchestra, Schumann Faustszenen
with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra,
Beethoven 9th Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas and San
Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte
with Daniel Harding at the Lucerne Festival.
In addition to his on-going relationship with Opera
Rara recording neglected 19th and 20th century Italian and French opera,
Alastair’s Miles discography currently stands at over seventy recordings
including a solo recital disc of Great Operatic Arias for Chandos.
Recent plans Claudio in Agrippina for Opéra
de Dijon and Opéra de Lille with Emmanuelle Haim; Daland in Der
Fliegende Holländer for Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liege; St.
Matthew Passion with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; Philip II in
Don Carlo for the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Bretran Robert le
Diable and Zurga Les Pêcheurs de Perles for the Salerno
Festival; Medée at the Staatsoper in Munich; Timur in Turandot
at the Staatsoper in Munich and in Leeds; Mozart’s Requiem in
Dresden with Christian Thielemann; Le Comte de Grieux in Manon
at Covent Garden; Leporello in Don Giovanni at the Vlaamse
Oper; Raimondo in Lucia di
Lammermoor at theThe Metropolitan Opera; Arkel in Pelléas et
Melisande at the Bayerische Staatsoper and at the
Scottish Opera in Glasgow; Pogner in The meistersinger von Nuerberg for the Netherlands Opera and at the
Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Billy Budd in Leeds; Il
Grande Inquisitore in Don Carlo at the Grange Opera Park and
return concert engagements at the Teatro Real, Madrid, Swedish Radio,
Vienna, Tokyo, London, Bamberg, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras, the
Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, the BBC, Royal Liverpool and the Deutsche
Radio Saarbrucken Philharmonic.
September 2018