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Justin Lavender was originally persuaded by Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten
to abandon nuclear engineering for music. He made his international debut
in The Pearl Fishers at the Sydney Opera House. This success led
to engagements with many of the world’s great opera companies and orchestras.
In 1990 he made debuts at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, singing the leading
role of Arnold in Rossini’s spectacular masterpiece William Tell,
and at the Vienna State Opera as Tamino in Mozart’s Magic Flute.
His debut at La Scala, Milan, in the title role of Rossini’s Count
Ory came the following year.
He recently returned to Covent Garden for the title role in Gounod’s Faust,
later singing Florestan in Beethoven’s Leonore with the Chelsea
Opera Group, Don José with the Welsh National Opera, and Loge in Wagner’s Das
Rheingold for the Latvian National Opera and at Norway’s Bergen
Festival. This season he sings Ruis in Donzetti’s Maria Padilla for
Washington Concert Opera, Pollione in Bellini’s Norma for
English Touring Opera, and Don José again with the Taiwan National
Symphony.
He has worked on the concert platform with such conductors as Solti,
Giulini, Haitink, Oramo, Slatkin, Rhozhdestvensky, Dutoit, Frühbeck de Burgos,
Elder and Abbado, and is particularly associated with oratorios such as Elgar’s Dream
of Gerontius, Verdi’s Requiem , Mahler’s 8th Symphony and
Schmidt’s Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (Book of Seven Seals).
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