Soloists
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David Walker |
Countertenor David Walker sings a vast range of repertoire, from the works of Monteverdi, Handel, and Gluck to Ligeti, Britten, and Petitgirard. In addition to his performances in the 2008–09 season with Music of the Baroque as Lichas in Handel’s Hercules, Mr. Walker will make his début with Lyric Opera of Kansas City in the title role of Handel’s Giulio Cesare and the Stadttheater-Klagenfurt as Ottone in L'Incoronazione di Poppea, and will return to the Richmond Symphony for performances
of Messiah and Central City Opera as Goffredo in
Handel’s Rinaldo.
Mr. Walker regularly performs with leading opera companies and music festivals in the US, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera, Washington National Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Minnesota Opera, Arizona Opera, Utah Opera, Orlando Opera Central City Opera, Aspen Music Festival, Berkshire Opera Festival, and the Boston Early Music Festival. International companies with whom he has appeared include Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich), L’Opéra National du Rhin (Strasbourg), English National Opera, Opera North (UK), Adelaide Festival of Australia, Pinchgut Opera, and the Göttingen Handel Festival.
In concert, Mr. Walker has appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony, Washington Concert Opera, Kaliningrad Symphony Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Richmond Symphony, Boston Baroque, Handel and Haydn Society, New York Collegium, Columbus Symphony, and the Orlando Philharmonic in works including Handel’s Messiah, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Carmina Burana, Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Carissimi’s Jephte, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, and Scarlatti’s Salve Regina.
A Handel specialist, Mr. Walker has sung title and leading roles in many of the composer’s operas including Giulio Cesare, Flavio, Agrippina, Xerxes, Rodelinda, Semele, Partenope, Orlando, Ariodante, Radamisto, and Rinaldo. He is equally comfortable in a wide variety of other roles, including Nero in L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Holofernes in Vivaldi's Juditha Triumphans, Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, the Sandman in Hansel and Gretel, Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Prince Go-Go in Ligeti’s Le Grand macabre, the Refuge in Jonathan Dove’s Flight, John Merrick in Laurent Petitgirard’s The Elephant Man, and the title role in Philip Glass’ Akhnaten.