Steven Gallop – basso profundo

Steven Gallop was born in Brisbane (he has a British and Australian passport). After an engagement with the Queensland Lyric Opera, he was engaged with the Australian Opera in Sydney in 1990, where his roles included Masetto in “Don Giovanni”, Swallow in “Peter Grimes” and Theseus in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. In 1992 he won the Sydney Operatic Aria Award (Sydney Eisteddfod), which afforded him the opportunity to study in Vienna.

In 1996 he made his acclaimed European debut as John Claggart in Britten’s “Billy Budd” with the Neue Oper Wien, and quickly made a name for himself as an interpreter of contemporary opera (A. Reiman – “Lear”, M. Brand – “Maschinist Hopkins”, W. Rihm – “Jakob Lenz”, T. Adés – “Powder Her Face”, N. Osbourne “- Terrible Mouth”, C. Cech – “Orfeo”, T. Pernes – “Zauberflöte 06″, J. Doderer – “STROM Die Oper, T. Dun – “Tea”, and many others). In Vienna he also sang under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies in the Konzerthaus (Offenbach’s “Il Signor Fagotto”, Weill’s “The Firebrand of Florence”) and the Musikverein (Bernstein’s “Songfest”). Other performances in Austria were with the Wiener Festwochen, the Klangbogen Festival in the Theater an der Wien, at the Volksoper Wien (“Szene Penthesilea Ein Traum” and “Jazzmärchen”), at the Wiener Kammeroper (world premiere of the stage version of “When She Died” by Jonathan Dove), and with the Opera Festival Stift Melk, where he sang in two consecutive seasons Philippe II. (“Don Carlo”), Sparafucile (“Rigoletto”), Mephisto (“Faust”) and Peter Schlémil (“Les Contes d’Hoffmann”). Most recently he performed Kaspar in “Der Freischütz” under the baton of Martin Haselböck with the Opera Festival Reinsberg.

International performances have brought him to the Welsh National Opera, the English National Opera and to the Music Theatre Wales, where he sang the role of Dr. Anthony Carroll in “The Piano Tuner” by Nigel Osbourne. He made successful debuts at the Teatro Municipal Santiago de Chile as Swallow and at the Oper Frankfurt in Friedrich Haas’ opera “Nacht”. Acclaimed performances in three different productions of Thomas Adès’ “Powder Her Face” have taken him from Vienna, Odense, Rome and Chicago,  to the Tel Aviv National Opera, the Zagreb Concert House, the Opéra Nantes, the Theater Winterthur, and the San Carlo Teatro in Naples. More recently he sang Commendatore in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” on tour through England, and was the bass soloist in Verdi’s Requiem in St. Edmundsbury Cathedral and Arundel Cathedral. He made his US debut as Sarastro in “Die Zauberflöte” with Eugene Opera, followed by Mephisto with Opera Notre Dame in Indiana. In the season 2008-09 he returned to his home country of Australia, where he appeared as Sir Giorgio (“I Puritani”) with Melbourne Opera, as Bonze (“Madama Butterfly”) with Opera Australia and as Commendatore (“Don Giovanni”) and Ariodante (“Xerxes”) both with Victoria Opera.

In March 2010 he returns to Eugene Opera singing the role of Mephisto in Gounod’s “Faust”.