Simon O’Neill (New Zealand)

Tenor — Florestan

HGO appearance: Title role in Wagner’s Lohengrin (2009).

About the Artist: This season, O’Neill will portray Siegmund in Die Walküre (Berlin Staatsoper), Parsifal (Vienna, Barcelona, and London), and will make appearances at the Bayreuth and Salzburg festivals, and in Nixon in China at San Francisco Opera. A principal artist with the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Scala, and both the Bayreuth and Salzburg festivals, O’Neill has appeared with conductors including James Levine, Riccardo Muti, Valery Gergiev, Sir Charles Mackerras, and Donald Runnicles, among others. He has performed Siegmund in Die Walküre at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, and La Scala. Notable debuts have included the title role of Lohengrin at HGO (2010), the Gran Sacerdote in Idomeneo (2006), Jenik in The Bartered Bride (2005), and Sergei in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (2009). Other operatic highlights include the title role of Lohengrin and Florestan in Fidelio at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera tour of Japan with Die Walküre, Mao in John Adams’ Nixon in China with Minnesota Opera, Mitch in Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, and Max in Der Freischütz in the Ruzowitszky production at Theater an der Wien. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Tokyo’s NHK Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House, London’s Royal Festival Hall, and at the Salzburg, Bayreuth, Edinburgh, Grafenegg, and New Zealand International festivals, as well as the BBC Proms. A Fulbright Scholar, he was awarded the 2005 Arts Laureate of New Zealand and was a grand finalist in the 2002 Metropolitan Opera National Auditions.