Brindley is one of the most respected singers in the world of opera
Born in Lancashire, bass Brindley studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he is now a Fellow and Visiting Professor.
At the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden his roles have included Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Sparafucile (Rigoletto) and Ramfis (Aida) and in Salzburg he has sung Balducci (Benvenuto Cellini) with Gergiev, Hobson (Peter Grimes) with Rattle and Bartolo (Le nozze di Figaro) on tour to Japan. At the Glyndebourne Festival he has appeared as Rocco (Fidelio), Il Commendatore (Don Giovanni) and Superintendent Budd (Albert Herring). A favourite at the English National Opera, his many roles there have included Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Pimen (Boris Godunov) and Fiesco (Simon Boccanegra).
Other operatic engagements have included Sarastro at the Hamburg State Opera; Sarastro and Banco (Macbeth) for the Opéra de Bordeaux; Pimen for the Opéra de Nice; Rocco in Seville; Il Commendatore and Claudio (Agrippina) in Santa Fe; Pogner (Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg) for the Welsh National Opera and Fasolt (Das Rheingold) and Filippo (Don Carlo) for Opera North.
Recent engagements include Narbal (Les Troyens), Sarastro and Sparafucile at Covent Garden; Sarastro at the Netherlands Opera; Pogner at the Opernhaus Zurich; Pimen at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich; Claggart (Billy Budd) at the Glyndebourne Festival and his debuts at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
In demand on the concert platform he has appeared at the Bregenz, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Salzburg and Three Choirs Festivals and at the BBC Proms. He works regularly with leading orchestras and conductors and recent engagements have included the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House with Antonio Pappano; the Philharmonia with Sir Andrew Davis; the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Harding; the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with Harry Bicket; the Monteverdi Choir with Sir John Eliot Gardiner; the Ensemble Intercontemporain with Pierre Boulez; the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen with Louis Langrée.
He has recorded the roles of Somnus/Cadmus (Semele) for Chandos, Ubaldo (from Donizetti’s Imelda de Lambertazzi) for Opera Rara and Rocco (Fidelio) for Glyndebourne Live, as well as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and John Nelson, and Haydn masses and Bach cantatas with the Monteverdi Choir and Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
Photo credit Gerard Collett