Rodney Clarke (bass-baritone)

Rodney Earl Clarke (born 1978) is a British bass-baritone opera and concert singer of Jamaican origin with an ACTIVE international career.

Life and career

Clarke was born in Greenwich, London and is one of five children. He sang as a boy treble in the choir of St George's Cathedral, Southwark and attended Dulwich College between 1989 and 1996. He trained at the Royal Academy of Music London where he was awarded the Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks Award 2001 and was a Recipient of a Peter Moores Scholarship.

He made his operatic debut in 2004 singing the role of TANCREDI in Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda in a Birmingham Opera Company production directed by Graham Vick. Later that year he played the title role in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with English Touring Opera in a production which set the opera in 18th century colonial Cuba. The year was completed with Clarke's portrayal of the Ferryman in Benjamin Britten's parable for church performance Curlew River with Birmingham Opera Company at the BBC Proms.

In 2006 Clarke made his role debut as Don Giovanni for Birmingham Opera Company and also made his film debut as Second Officer in Kenneth Branagh's film version of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. In May of that year, Clarke debuted at the Aldeburgh Festival where he created the role of Anastase in Sante, an opera composed by Emily Hall depicting the horrors of the Rwanda [...]. In October of that year Clarke featured in the Young Vic's first production after its refurbishment as Ashmodeus, the demon in Jonathan Dove's community opera Tobias and the Angel. In December he was invited to turn on the Christmas Lights in The Cut, London as he headed the Young Vic Christmas show playing the eponymous hero of the newly-commissioned Jonathan Dove opera, The Enchanted Pig.

Clarke then went on to make his European house debuts in France, Norway and Italy performing and creating new roles including Leo in Glenn Erik Haugland's opera Rebekkah for the Norwegian National Opera, Marquis D'Obigny in La traviata for Birmingham Opera Company, Jake in Porgy and Bess for Opéra National de Lyon, and Pasha Selim in Mozart's Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail for Opera di Roma.

Clarke remains a regular on concert platform performing at St. John's, Smith Square, the Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, Royal Albert Hall, Wigmore Hall and the 02 Arena. His performances as a bass soloist have included Haydn's The Creation at the Royal Albert Hall, Bernstein's Mass at the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra, the title role in Porgy and Bess (concert version) with the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia in Rome and Handel's Messiah alongside soprano Emma Kirkby at the Olavsfestdagene (St. Olav's Day Festival) in Trondheim, Norway.

External links

• rodneyclarke.com Official Site