“George Robarts deserves special praise for his lanky, delightful Bottom”
★★★★★
Plays to See: The Fairy Queen

“Robarts’ mastery of this swingeing coloratura was among the best of them all”
Classical Music Daily: Agrippina

George Robarts is an emerging British baritone with a vibrant stage presence and a ‘great penchant for comedy’ (Opera Scene).

A versatile singer and actor, he recently starred in Longborough Festival Opera’s new hybrid adaptation of The Fairy Queen (★★★★★ The Stage, Plays to See), multi-roling between the Drunken Poet and the spoken role of Bottom in the original Shakespeare.

In 2023 he also appeared as Leporello in Don Giovanni for Cumbria Opera Group, Chorus in Rigoletto for Opera Holland Park and Das Wunder der Heliane for Nederlandse Reisopera, Claudio in Agrippina for Hampstead Garden Opera, and Escamillo in Carmen for Longborough Playground Opera.

In 2024 he joins Garsington Opera to cover Starveling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Servant in Un giorno di regno, and to sing in the chorus for Un giorno and Platée. He returns to the Opera Holland Park Chorus for Puccini’s Messa di Gloria and for Stravinsky’s Les Noces with the New Movement Collective at Woolwich Works.

On the recital platform, in 2023 he joined Graham Johnson OBE at Leeds Lieder Festival in June, performing Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin at the Howard Assembly Room. At Milton Court Concert Hall, he performed songs by George Walker for BBC Radio 3 Total Immersion, Russian song in a pre-Revolution programme curated by Iain Burnside, and Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel alongside pianist Thomas Eeckhout.

George graduated with Distinction from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he studied on the postgraduate programme under Robert Dean, and was generously supported by the Kathleen Trust and the Josephine Baker Trust.

A fluent German and Italian speaker, he previously read Modern Languages at Oxford University, graduating with First-Class Honours in 2017.

George is an Oxford Song Young Artist for 2024-25, a Garsington Opera Alvarez Young Artist for 2024, and a Longborough Festival Opera Emerging Artist for 2023. He is the winner of the Paul Hamburger Lieder Prize 2023. Further competition successes include the Audience Prize at the Guildhall Chartered Surveyors’ Prize 2022, Second Prize & Best Individual Song Prize at the John Kerr Award for English Song 2022, and Third Prize at the Patricia Routledge National English Song Competition 2021.

“George Robarts brought a commanding intensity to his portrayal of Jesus”
Daily Info: St Matthew Passion,
Dorchester Abbey

George’s highlights in recital include Butterworth Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad, Schumann Dichterliebe, Beethoven An die ferne Geliebte, Don Quichotte cycles by Ravel and Ibert at Milton Court Concert Hall, Die schöne Müllerin in an ensemble performance directed by Roderick Williams, and an eclectic evening of songs and poetry from the German Resistance 1933–45 at Oxford’s Levine Auditorium with pianist Edward Picton-Turbervill.

He has performed title roles in Dido and Aeneas (New Chamber Opera) and Le nozze di Figaro (Consortium Novum). Scenes roles include Orfeo in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini, Florence) and Macheath in Die Dreigroschenoper (GSMD).

In concert, solo highlights include Pilatus St John Passion at St Bartholomew’s Church, New York City (Choir of New College, Oxford & English Concert Players), Christus St Matthew Passion (Orchestra of St John’s), solo cantatas by Bach and Telemann (Oxford Bach Soloists), Fauré’s Requiem at the Basilica di Santo Spirito, Florence (Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini), Mozart’s Requiem and Coronation Mass (Solihull Choral Society), Zebul Jephtha (Dorking Choral Society), Haydn’s Nelson Mass alongside Carolyn Sampson (St Andrew’s, Bedford), and Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Christmas Carols (Orchestra of St John’s).

Recent chorus engagements include the Academy of Ancient Music’s Messiah at Barbican Hall, the English Concert’s Messiah at Coventry Cathedral, and La Nuova Musica’s Dido and Aeneas at the BBC Proms.

George commands an extensive repertoire of cabaret and revue music, frequently performing songs by Noel Coward, Tom Lehrer, Flanders & Swann and others. Recent appearances include a comedy set alongside Graham Johnson OBE and Dame Felicity Lott at Henry Wood Hall.

He is active in outreach and education projects, performing for Opera Holland Park’s Inspire programme and working with the Longborough Youth Chorus.

During his studies, he was fortunate enough to sing in masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Emma Kirkby, John Mark Ainsley, Graham Vick, Donald Maxwell, Christopher Purves, Roderick Williams, Richard Hetherington and David Gowland, and to be coached in performance projects by Graham Johnson, Iain Burnside, Alison Buchanan and Roderick Williams.

Alongside his singing career, George is a prizewinning translator from German, most recently of Diedrich Diederichsen’s Aesthetics of Pop Music (Polity Press, 2023) and of Jenny Haase’s work on Schubert’s Winterreise for German Romanticism and Latin America (MHRA, 2023).

Biography not to be reproduced without prior permission. Please contact George for an up-to-date version.

Cover images: The Fairy Queen
2023 © Matthew Williams-Ellis