Adrian Thompson

Biography

London born Adrian Thompson is an artist of extraordinary versatility with a wide-ranging opera, concert and recital repertoire of works from the Renaissance to Contemporary music periods.

His recent opera appearances have included Skuratov (The House of the Dead) and Canio (I Pagliacci) for Opera Frankfurt; Florestan (Fidelio) for Welsh National Opera, Albert Gregor (The Makropoulos Case) and Midas (Die Liebe der Danae) for Garsington Opera; as well as concert performances as Grigory (Boris Godunov) at The Brighton Fesitval and Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos) at the Barbican, London. He has also performed with Glyndebourne; The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; English National Opera; Scottish Opera; Badisches Staatstheater; Staatstheater Stuttgart; Staatstheater Darmstadt; Théâtre des Champs Elysées; New Israel Opera; Netherlands Opera; Opera Zuid; and at many Festivals including Buxton, Wexford, Lausanne and Göttingen.

Adrian Thompson has performed with all the major British orchestras and ensembles and his overseas engagements have taken him to Australia, North America, Japan, Russia and the Baltic States as well as Europe and Scandinavia. During his career he has worked with many of the distinguished Early Music conductors - Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Trevor Pinnock, Harry Christophers and Philippe Herreweghe. No stranger to the contemporary music repertoire, he has performed Lutoslawski’s Paroles Tisées, recorded Judith Wier’s A Night at the Chinese Opera and given many premieres of works by British and European composers. 

A very experienced recitalist, Adrian Thompson has made many appearances at the Wigmore Hall and at Festivals in the UK and Europe with pianists Graham Johnson, Iain Burnside, Roger Vignoles and harpist Ossian Ellis. He has recorded discs of works by Vaughan-Williams and Gurney, a volume in the acclaimed Complete Schubert Edition for Hyperion, Warlock’s The Curlew and Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin. He also appears on Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Vaughan-Williams’ The Pilgrim’s Progress and Sir John in Love and a recording of Händel’s Rodelinda. His discography also includes Britten’s Serenade, Les Illuminations and Nocturne, Mendelssohn’s Lobegesang and Busoni’s Rondo Arlechinesco.