Peter Coleman-Wright feels equally at home in opera, concert or recital. He has performed in many of the world's great opera houses including The Metropolitan Opera, New York (Falke, Belcore, Fieramosca in Benvenuto Cellini, and Marcello) and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Dandini, Papageno, Billy Budd, Marcello, Ballad Singer in Paul Bunyan, Don Alvaro in Il Viaggio a Reims, Ping, Gunther, Donner and Beckmesser). For English National Opera he has sung Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni, Scarpia, Rossini's Figaro, The Traveller (Death in Venice), Billy Budd, The Forrester (Cunning Little Vixen), Michele (Il Tabarro), Dallapiccola's The Prisoner, Henze's The Prince of Homburg and Glanert's Caligula. He created the roles of John in Jonathan Harvey's Inquest of Love, and Colin in David Blake's The Plumbers Gift. For Glyndebourne he has sung Guglielmo, Demetrius (A Midsummers Night's Dream), Sid (Albert Herring) and Pizzaro (Fidelio).
He sang Sharpless for the Paris Opera, Guglielmo and Count Almaviva in Bordeaux Opera, Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva in Munich and Balstrode and Marcello in Geneva. For the Netherlands Opera he has sung Busoni's Dr. Faust, Schaunard, and Chorebe (Les Troyens), for La Fenice Count Almaviva, he made his debut at La Scala, Milan in Death in Venice and has appeared at the Aix-en Provence and Bregenz Festivals. His North American appearances include Houston Grand Opera (Rodrigo in Don Carlos, Sharpless, and Henry in Jake Heggies The End of the Affair), Santa Fe Opera (Sharpless), New York City Opera (Don Giovanni) and Vancouver Opera (Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva).
For his native Australia he has sung Scarpia, Macbeth, Mandryka, Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva, Germont, Billy Budd, Balstrode, Pizzaro, Onegin, Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), and Sweeney Todd (winning the Helpmann Award for Best Actor in a Musical). He created the role of Harry Joy in Brett Dean's Bliss, which was also performed at the Edinburgh International Festival.
As a concert artist he has performed in the world's major venues, most notably London's South Bank and Barbican, Avery Fisher Hall, Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Concert Hall. He has recorded extensively for Telarc, Chandos, Hyperion, and EMI.
His engagements include Glanert's Caligiula at the Teatro Colon and in concert at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Dutch Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Death in Venice in Moscow under Rozhdestvensky and Brett Dean's Last Days of Socrates with both the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (under Simone Young) and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (under Gustavo Dudamel).
He was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Melbourne.
Photo: artist's archives
