Roderick Earle

MA

Vocal Studies professor

Roderick Earle was born in Winchester, where he was a boy chorister in the cathedral choir. He graduated from Cambridge, where he read Music and was a Choral Scholar in the renowned St. John's College Choir. He was then awarded a Foundation Scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he studied on the Opera Course, later continuing his studies with Otakar Kraus. He went on to being awarded a Greater London Arts Association Musician of the Year Award, and, after making his opera debut with English National Opera, joined the Royal Opera making his Covent Garden debut as Antonio in Le Nozze di Figaro in 1980. He was a member of the company for 21 years, during which time he made the transition from bass to baritone, and sang over 60 roles.

His repertoire has covered roles from the Count/ Le Nozze di Figaro (New Zealand Opera 2002), through the main Italian repertoire: Rigoletto (Opera Zuid 2002), Amonasro (Royal Albert Hall 2001), Ford (New Zealand Opera 2001), Tonio and Alfio (RAH 2002), Germont (Wuppertal 2005), to include Rangoni (Teatro Regio, Turin 1997), Alberich/ Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (ROH 1998) Der Fliegender Hollander (Opera de Massy 2000) and Altair/ Die ägyptische Helena (Garsington 1997), the Devil/ Cheryevichki (Garsington 2004), Theseus/ A Midsummer Night's Dream (Rome Opera 1999), King Fisher/ Midsummer Marriage (Covent Garden 1997), Klinghoffer (Wuppertal 2005) and more recently the Police Inspector/ Lady Macbeth of Mtensk (ROH 2004, 2006), Jack Hubbard/ Doctor Atomic (ENO 2009) Nekrotzar/ Le Grand Macabre (Adelaide Festival 2010, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires 2011) and the world premiere of Goehr’s King Lear/ Promised End (ETO 2010).

He has a wide experience of concert work which has also spanned from Bach Mathew Passion (Royal Festival Hall 2003), through the Classical and Romantic repertoire: Rossini Stabat Mater, Damnation de Faust for Polish Radio and the Munich Philharmonic, to 20th century works such as Les Noces (BBC Proms) and Ferneyhough's Transit.

Roderick Earle has taught singing for the last 25 years in Cambridge, Colchester and London. He is a member of the British Voice Association and the Association of Teachers of Singing. In 2010 he founded The Colchester Chamber Choir of 28 auditioned voices which specialises in pre-baroque and 19th and 20th century choral repertoire.

Faculties / departments: Vocal Studies