Biography

Grammy Award–winner Gerald Finley performs with the world’s major opera companies and orchestras in a wide variety of repertoire. His career initially focused on the music of Mozart, and then encompassed major Wagner and Verdi repertoire, as well as the title roles in Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Rossini’s William Tell. He created the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams’s Doctor Atomic at San Francisco Opera and performed it at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, and English National Opera.

Highlights this season include Hans Sachs in Die Meister-singer von Nürnberg in Madrid; the European premiere of Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra in Barcelona; and returns to Bavarian State Opera as Amfortas in Parsifal and the Royal Opera House as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte. In concert, he performs Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; Mendelssohn’s Elijah with London Symphony; and Bluebeard’s Castle at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Oslo Philharmonic, and in his San Francisco Symphony debut this week.

Recent engagements saw Mr. Finley as Antony in the world premiere of Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra at San Francisco Opera, Scarpia in Tosca and Count in Le nozze di Figaro at the Paris Opera, his debut as the title role in Der fliegende Holländer at Berlin State Opera, Wolfram in Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House, Iago in Otello at Bavarian State Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, Bluebeard’s Castle and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera, and the title role in Falstaff at the Vienna State Opera and Salzburg Festival. Mr. Finley’s concert appearances include the London Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Mr. Finley was born in Montreal, began singing as a chorister in Ottawa, and completed his musical studies in England at the Royal College of Music; King’s College, Cambridge; and the National Opera Studio. In 2017 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire and was previously appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.