Representation: World
"Jeremy Ovenden, who is quietly enjoying the status of legendary Mozart interpreter, plays Tito superbly: sometimes affably, sometimes with boyish swagger."
Bram Van Haelter, De Standaard | September 2023
"Jeremy Ovenden is in a class of his own; he radiates dominance and sex appeal with his slender, flexible voice, which naturally makes the attractiveness of the divine Jupiter irresistible to the mortal Semele. His ‘Come to my arms, my lovely fair’ is also suitably erotically charged and sounds captivatingly beautiful.”
Das Opernglas | September 2023
British tenor Jeremy Ovenden is considered one of the most sought-after Mozart tenors of his generation, performing regularly as a guest on the international Opera and Concert stage.
The title roles of Mozart’s Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito have been a focal point of his work, which have taken him to the Teatro Real in Madrid, Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, Theater an der Wien, Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Gent, the Angers Nantes Opéra as well as at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York and Wiener Festwochen. His further guest appearances have included the title role of Mozart’s Lucio Silla at the La Monnaie in Brussels, as Don Ottavio at La Scala in Milan, the Staatsoper Berlin and the Edinburgh Festival, and as Tamino at the Gstaad-Menuhin Festival and the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André, France.
The tenor’s repertoire also includes Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and the title role in L’Orfeo, Handel’s Bajazet in Tamerlano, Grimoaldo in Rodelinda and Emilio in Partenope, the latter which he performed in a new production at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Jeremy Ovenden performed the roles of Jupiter and Apollo in a new production of Handel’s Semele, staged and conducted by George Petrou at the International Handel Festival Göttingen, with additional performances in Athens.
An equally sought-after international concert singer, Jeremy Ovenden’s career to date has included collaborations with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Ivor Bolton, Myung-Whun Chung, Iván Fischer, Nicholas Harnoncourt, Philippe Herreweghe, René Jacobs, Vladimir Jurowski, Bernard Labadie, Riccardo Muti, Sir Simon Rattle and many others. Projects in recent seasons have included Handel’s Messiah at the Vienna Musikverein, Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Together with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under René Jacobs, he gave guest performances of Handel’s Israel in Egypt in Freiburg and Paris, and subsequently took on the tenor part in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. His long-standing collaboration with the French period ensemble Les Talens Lyriques under Christophe Rousset recently took him to Oslo, Namur and the Handel Festival in Halle with Handel's Jephtha, while at the Mozartfest Würzburg he performed the role of Ferrando in a concert performance of Mozart's Così fan tutte.
Previous concert engagements have included performances of Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and his War Requiem with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Bamberg Philharmonic; Mozart’s Requiem at the Edinburgh International Festival, with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as Haydn’s The Seasons with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Gabrieli Consort and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Further notable performances include Mozart’s Zaide with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Bergen and Stavanger, Haydn’s Harmoniemesse at the Herbstgold Festival in Eisenstadt, and Handel’s Theodora at the Vienna Konzerthaus.
Performing works by Johann Sebastian Bach – also central to his varied concert career – Jeremy Ovenden has appeared as soloist in the Christmas Oratorio with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, as the Evangelist in the St. Matthew Passion with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, in the St. John Passion with the WDR Symphony Orchestra and the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, and as the Arientenor in the St. Matthew Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under Ivor Bolton.
Jeremy Ovenden also returns once again to the title role in Mozart's Idomeneo this season, making his house debut at the Stuttgart Opera in a new production directed by Bastian Kraft and conducted by Cornelius Meister. The tenor will also appear as Coraggio in the world premiere of I Grotteschi at La Monnaie, which - based on Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea - will merge all three titles into a new two-part evening in a concept devised by director Rafael R. Villalobos. After Bach's Mass in B minor, he returns to Madrid as a concert soloist with the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, where he will be heard as Ariel and Pater Ecstaticus in Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust under the direction of David Afkham.
Jeremy Ovenden’s discography includes recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Mark Passion and St. John Passion, amid selections from the composer’s cantata oeuvre, Handel’s oratorios Saul and L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons. The works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart feature prominently among the tenor’s recordings, with the early operatic works Il sogno di Scipione, La Betulia liberata, La finta semplice, L’oca del Cairo and Lo sposo deluso, as well as in his dedicated solo album ‘An Italian Journey’ with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Jonathan Cohen for Signum Classics.
2024 | 2025
www.jeremyovenden.com
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Joseph Haydn: The Seasons
Carolyn Sampson, Jeremy Ovenden, Andrew Foster-Williams
Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort & Players | National Forum of Music Choir
Conductor: Paul McCreesh
Label: NFM / Signum | 2017
Georg Friedrich Händel: Saul
Rosemary Joshua, Emma Bell, Lawrence Zazzo, Jeremy Ovenden, Michael Slattery, Finnur Bjarnason, Henry Waddington, Gidon Saks
Concerto Köln | RIAS Kammerchor
Conductor: René Jacobs
Label: Harmonia Mundi | 2015
Georg Friedrich Händel: L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
Gillian Webster, Laurence Kilsby, Jeremy Ovenden, Peter Harvey, Ashley Riches, William Whitehead
Gabrieli Consort & Players
Conductor: Paul McCreesh
Label: Signum | 2015
Joseph Haydn: The Creation
Sarah Tynan, Jeremy Ovenden, Matthew Brook
Handel and Haydn Society
Conductor: Harry Christophers
Label: Coro | 2015
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Idomeneo, Rè di Creta KV 366
Diana Haller, Elettra
Lavinia Bini, Ilia
Jeremy Ovenden, Idomeneo
Ida Ränzlöv, Idamante
Charles Sy, Arbace
Aleksander Myrling, Voce di Nettuno
Cornelius Meister, conductor
Bastian Kraft, director
Peter Baur, stage design
Jelena Miletić, costumes
Sophie Lux, videos
Gerrit Jurda, lighting design
Manuel Pujol, chorus master
Franz-Erdmann Meyer-Herder, dramaturgy
Staatsorchester Stuttgart
Staatsopernchor Stuttgart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Idomeneo, Rè di Creta KV 366
Diana Haller, Elettra
Lavinia Bini, Ilia
Jeremy Ovenden, Idomeneo
Ida Ränzlöv, Idamante
Charles Sy, Arbace
Aleksander Myrling, Voce di Nettuno
Cornelius Meister, conductor
Bastian Kraft, director
Peter Baur, stage design
Jelena Miletić, costumes
Sophie Lux, videos
Gerrit Jurda, lighting design
Manuel Pujol, chorus master
Franz-Erdmann Meyer-Herder, dramaturgy
Staatsorchester Stuttgart
Staatsopernchor Stuttgart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Idomeneo, Rè di Creta KV 366
Diana Haller, Elettra
Lavinia Bini, Ilia
Jeremy Ovenden, Idomeneo
Ida Ränzlöv, Idamante
Charles Sy, Arbace
Aleksander Myrling, Voce di Nettuno
Cornelius Meister, conductor
Bastian Kraft, director
Peter Baur, stage design
Jelena Miletić, costumes
Sophie Lux, videos
Gerrit Jurda, lighting design
Manuel Pujol, chorus master
Franz-Erdmann Meyer-Herder, dramaturgy
Staatsorchester Stuttgart
Staatsopernchor Stuttgart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Idomeneo, Rè di Creta KV 366
Diana Haller, Elettra
Lavinia Bini, Ilia
Jeremy Ovenden, Idomeneo
Ida Ränzlöv, Idamante
Charles Sy, Arbace
Aleksander Myrling, Voce di Nettuno
Cornelius Meister, conductor
Bastian Kraft, director
Peter Baur, stage design
Jelena Miletić, costumes
Sophie Lux, videos
Gerrit Jurda, lighting design
Manuel Pujol, chorus master
Franz-Erdmann Meyer-Herder, dramaturgy
Staatsorchester Stuttgart
Staatsopernchor Stuttgart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Idomeneo, Rè di Creta KV 366
Diana Haller, Elettra
Lavinia Bini, Ilia
Jeremy Ovenden, Idomeneo
Ida Ränzlöv, Idamante
Charles Sy, Arbace
Aleksander Myrling, Voce di Nettuno
Cornelius Meister, conductor
Bastian Kraft, director
Peter Baur, stage design
Jelena Miletić, costumes
Sophie Lux, videos
Gerrit Jurda, lighting design
Manuel Pujol, chorus master
Franz-Erdmann Meyer-Herder, dramaturgy
Staatsorchester Stuttgart
Staatsopernchor Stuttgart