BIOGRAPHY
British Tenor, Philip Sheffield, is renowned internationally for his vocal versatility, acting ability and intensity. After an early career singing lyric roles all over the world including La Scala Milan, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, La Monnaie Brussels he is now in demand as a character tenor singing roles such as Loge Das Rheingold, Rev Adams Peter Grimes, and Valzachi Der Rosenkavalier. He has just recently covered the role of Loge for the Longborough Festival’s complete ring cycle performances and sang the comic role of Grifano in Salieri’s A la fiera di Venezia for Bampton Classical Opera.
He recently sang the Tenor Solo in the Bernstein Mass in the new Biopic “Maestro’ starring Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan. Philip was excited to be invited to sing this with the LSO and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in April 2023 and the film was released in 2024. The sound Track can be found here
In 2024 he was invited over to New York to perform the Mass with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert hosted by Bradley Cooper.
In spite of the problems caused by Covid 19 he sang the challenging role of Zivny in Janáček’s opera Osud at the Janáček Theatre in Brno in a new production by the esteemed opera director Robert Carsen . This was streamed live on 27th November 2021. In recent seasons he has sung Loge for Grimeborne , The Reverend Adams in Peter Grimes at the Opera Monte Carlo with Jose Cura as Grimes and conducted by Jan Latham Koenig, Edward IV in Richard III at La Fenice in Venice. This outstanding production by Robert Carsen of Giorgio Battisteli’s opera was picked as one of the Opera’s of the Year by “Operawire”
He also he sang The Reverend Adams for Köln Opera in a new production by Frederic Wake – Walker conducted by Nicholas Collon. This was universally praised in Germany and was Opera Koln’s “production of the year” for 2018.
Other recent engagements include A Midsummer Nights Dream at the Hyogo performing arts centre in Japan in a new production by Anthony McDonald , Simon in Harrison Birtwistle’s The Last Supper in Glasgow with Martyn Brabbins and The BBC Scottish Orchestra, performances of the Verdi Requiem in Durham Cathedral and the role of Loge in Das Rheingold in London .
Two recent releases are a new DVD out of the opera Claude from the Opera de Lyon and a CD recording of Eric Chisholm’s Simoon featuring Philip, Jane Irwin and Damien Thantrey which was released in January of 2017.
Other recent work includes recording the sound track for a new operatic animated film, the first very performance of On Wenlock Edge in Slovakia by Ralph Vaughan Williams with the Czech Philharmonic Quartet and the pianist Jonathan Powell in the Levoca Festival . He will also be singing with the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall as one of the soloists in Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music conducted by Ed Gardner. As an expert in German language singing he will perform Schubert’s Wintereise in many venues in 2024-5.
Philip was recently appointed as the new Artistic Director for Opera Prelude. He is also the Artistic director of HGO - Hampstead Garden Opera.