Biography

The British born tenor Brian Galliford studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. In 1991 he made his home in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

His operatic repertoire includes Herodes Salome (Vorarlberger Landestheater Bregenz), Piet vom Faß Le Grand Macabre (Komische Oper Berlin, Vlaamse Opera, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos Lisbon, Nationale Reisopera), The Rector and Bob Boles Peter Grimes (Royal Opera Covent Garden, Nederlandse Opera, Nationale Reisopera), Tanzmeister Ariadne auf Naxos (Welsh National Opera), Graf Albert Die tote Stadt (Nederlandse Opera), Eisslinger and Zorn Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Nederlandse Opera, Oper Frankfurt, Vlaamse Opera), Monostatos Die Zauberflöte (Nationale Reisopera) and Fatty Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Nationale Reisopera). As regular guest artist at the Netherlands Opera he has also sung in Die Soldaten, Der Rosenkavalier, Boris Godunov, Capriccio and Salome. He has been a guest artist at the Glyndebourne Festival (Betrothal in a Monastery), Bregenzer Festspiele (The Cunning Little Vixen), Nationale Reisopera (Idomeneo, Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino), Opera Zuid (I pagliacci) and Taller Amsterdam (Weisse Rose, Los Heraldos) as well as Old Deuteronomy in the 1992/93 Dutch production of Cats. He has been involved in a number of world premieres including Cuentos de la Alhambra (José Luis Greco), Rixt (Henk Alkema) and Los Heraldos (Ilse van de Kasteelen) as well as a television film production of Udo Zimmermann's Weisse Rose.

Brian Galliford has sung with various conductors including Antonio Pappano, Vladimir Jurowski, Carlo Rizzi, Kenneth Montgomery, Ingo Metzmacher, Mark Wigglesworth, Hartmut Haenchen, Peter Eötvös, Luca Pfaff, Edo de Waart, Reinbert de Leeuw, Valery Gergiev and Daniel Hoyem-Cavazza and worked with such directors as Willy Decker, Harry Kupfer, Daniel Slater, Nicola Raab, Tim Albery, Brigitte Fassbaender, Kurt Sternik and the late Ernst-Theo Richter.

In July 2004 he made his British debut at the Royal Opera as The Rector in Willy Decker and François de Carpentries' production of Peter Grimes conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Whilst 2006 began well with Mr. Galliford's first Herodes in Salome for the Vorarlberger Landestheater in Bregenz, followed by his first visit to the Glyndebourne Festival Opera for Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery, he was forced to withdraw from the David Pountney production of Die Soldaten at the Ruhrtriennale when cancer was diagnosed. Fortunately the treatment was successful despite complications and after an extensive period of recuperation, Mr. Galliford was able to resume his singing career in September 2008 as Missail in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov for the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam. In the Spring of 2009 he made his first trip to Vienna to sing General Sir Philip Wingrave in Britten's Owen Wingrave for the Wiener Kammeroper and was invited back as Oberst in Reimann's Die Gespenstersonate in February this year.

In January 2011 he will make his French debut in the lead role of Don Jerome in Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery at the Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse and at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Further engagements include the world première of Alexander Raskatov's The Dog's Heart in June 2010 directed by Simon McBurney at the Netherlands Opera as well as the revival of Willy Decker's 2003 production of B.A. Zimmermann's Die Soldaten in the Autumn and Der Rosenkavalier conducted by Sir Simon Rattle in 2011, both with the Netherlands Opera.

Click here to read a recent interview (in Dutch) for the online opera magazine OperaNederland.nl.