Peter Kirk

The musical journey of British tenor Peter Kirk began at the age of eight. As a choirboy, he earned the highest distinctions from the Royal School of Church Music and performed numerous solo parts, some of which were broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Following his voice change at 14, he took a break from singing. During his undergraduate studies in International Politics at the University of Wales Aberystwyth, he became active again through the university’s choral societies, and shortly after graduating, he turned his focus to a solo singing career.

Peter completed a Master’s degree in Performance and went on to earn an Artist Diploma in Opera at the International Opera School of the Royal College of Music in London. He then moved to France, where he joined the opera studio of Opéra National du Rhin. There, he performed roles such as the Prince in Respighi’s Dornröschen, Paolino in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, the Deuxième Paysan in Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, and Chaplitsky in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame.

He continued to maintain a strong relationship with the opera house in Strasbourg, appearing in productions such as Antonio in Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot, Pasek in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, the Third Jew in Strauss’ Salome, the Hotel Porter in Britten’s Death in Venice, and most recently, during the 2022/23 season, as Monostatos in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Peter Kirk has since collaborated with numerous renowned international opera houses and festivals, including the Royal Opera House in London, English National Opera, Opéra National de Lyon, Latvian National Opera, Bergen National Opera, Volksoper Vienna, Nederlandse Reisopera, and Opéra de Lille. He has also appeared at festivals such as Aix-en-Provence, Opera Holland Park, the Grafenegg Festival, the Grange Festival, and the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan.

He has received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Lysander in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (including performances in Tours, at the Grange Festival, the Hyogo Performing Arts Center, and the Nevill Holt Festival), as Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (Opéra de Vichy and Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne), and in other lyric tenor roles such as Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Latvian National Opera in Riga, as well as Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at Soho Theatre London.

More recently, he has also taken on character roles such as Tobias Ragg in Sweeney Todd (2019) at Bergen National Opera, before making his debut later that year at Vienna’s Volksoper as Charlie Dalrymple in Brigadoon. He returned to his native England as Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance (2021) and as Ralph Rackstraw in H.M.S. Pinafore for Opera Holland Park in summer 2022.

Peter is equally at home on the concert platform. His engagements have included the centenary gala conducted by Bernstein protégé Yutaka Sado at the Grafenegg Festival in Austria and at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan. In 2018, he also made his debut at the Gasteig in Munich as tenor soloist in Mozart’s Requiem.

While primarily known for his operatic work, Peter has recently devoted increasing attention to art song. In January 2022, he made a successful debut at Opéra de Lille performing Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin. Earlier, in October 2020, he appeared at Theater Delphi in Berlin in a cross-genre reinterpretation of Schubert’s Schwanengesang, collaborating with internationally renowned artists.