Peter Knapp
Peter Knapp grew up in St Albans, near London, where he was a cathedral chorister and lay clerk, and then studied at St John’s College Cambridge, where he sang in the Chapel Choir and read English.
He studied singing privately in London and in Italy, where he worked with the Italian baritone Tito Gobbi, and after working in professional choirs and choruses, he made his solo debut in as Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne.
He went on to sing this role at English National Opera, as well as the title role in Don Giovanni. He sang the title role in the British premier of Szymanowski’s King Roger (under Charles Mackerras) and a number of roles for Kent Opera including Orfeo in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (filmed by BBC Television), Eugene Onegin, Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio and Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata.
Engagements abroad led to his singing more Verdi roles: Di Luna in Il Trovatore, Rigoletto and Ford in Falstaff, as well as Marcello in La Bohème and Sharpless in Madame Butterfly in the Puccini operas. In Venice he sang in the Britten Church Operas and in Handel’s Agrippina, and in France Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia, while back in the UK he created the role of Maxim in Joseph’s Rebecca for Opera North.
As a recitalist and concert singer he undertook an extended tour of Australia for the ABC, sang with many leading orchestras and conductors, including the Berlin Philharmonic, and recorded a number of recitals of German Lieder and French mélodies for BBC Radio 3.
Kent Opera – Director Jonathan Miller, Conductor Roger Norrington
Moving into training, directing and conducting performers, he was Director of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music, set up British Youth Opera and then set up his own company, Travelling Opera, which toured extensively in the UK and France and gave London seasons at Sadlers Wells, and the South Bank and Barbican concert halls.
He has also created his own small-scale production, All you Ever Wanted to Know about Opera!, which he performs in theatres and festivals, as well as at corporate and charity fund-raising events.
As a vocal coach he has worked with actors and singers at The Drama Centre, Central St Martin’s and has taught at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance for the last 23 years. As a yoga teacher, he incorporates its key principles into his training process.
