Rupert Enticknap
countertenor
Rupert Enticknap is one of Britain’s leading young countertenors. He has performed with renown Early Music ensembles and conductors and also brings along a great passion for modern and contemporary music repertoire.
In 2017, he made his debut at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in the role of Rosencrantz in Brett Dean’s celebrated Hamlet-premiere alongside Barbara Hannigan which has been chosen as best world premiere by the International Opera Awards 2018. The DVD-production received the Gramophone Classical Music Award 2019. He also sang the title role of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten at the MITO Settembre Musica Festival 2015, the European in Maurizio Kagel’s Mare Nostrum at the Wiener Kammeroper in 2014, the world premiere of Max Richter’s Sum for The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Mystery Man in Olga Neuwirth’s The Lost Highwayat the Oper Frankfurt.
In 2019, he made his debuts at the Opéra national du Rhin Strasbourg, Opéra national de Lorraine Nancy, the Opéra Royal Versailles and at the Kölner Philharmonie in Giovanni Legrenzi’s La Divisione del Mondo. Recent opera engagements led him to the Bayerische Staatsoper (Haas’s Thomas), the Oper Frankfurt (Gluck’s Ezio), the Staatsoper Berlin (Steffani’s Amor Vien Dal Destino), the Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels (Gassmann’s L’Opera Seria), the Staatstheater Darmstadt (Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’ Ulisse in patria), Georg Caspar Schürmann’s Die getreue Alceste at the Winter in Schwetzingen and to the Shakespeare’s Globe London/ROH (Cavalli’s L’Ormindo). As a company member of the Junges Ensemble des Theater an der Wien his roles included Mirteo in Vinci/Handel’s Semiramide, and the title roles in Handel’s Orlando and Radamisto (with René Jacobs and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra).
Rupert Enticknap has been invited to the Olavsfest Trondheim with the Trondheim Sympony Orchestra (MacMillan’s A European Requiem), the Kilkenny Festival (Handel’s Giulio Cesare), the Brighton Festival and St John’s Smith Square (Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas), the Buxton Festival (Handel’s Tamerlano), the London Handel Festival (Riccardo Primo, Rodelinda, Handel/Vinci pasticcio Elpidia), the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music (Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Cesti‘s La Dori) and Classical Opera London (Telemann’s Orpheus). He recently sang the role of Farinelli alongside Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance in the Olivier Award nominated play Farinelli and the King in London’s West End.
Enticknap’s oratorio and concert performances have included Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B Minor with Ensemble Prisma Wien, Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, Theodora and Israel in Egypt in the UK, Orff’s Carmina Burana in Prague, Handel’s Solomon at Linz’s Brucknerhaus, Purcell’s Come Ye Sons of Art and Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater with The Ten Tors Orchestra, and Dido and Aeneas at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with Collegium Vocale Gent. In 2022, he sang Scarlatti’s PASSIO with the B’Rock Orchestra & Vocal Consort at the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam and in Den Haag. In recital, he has performed at the Resonanzen Festival at the Wiener Konzerthaus, Wiener Kammeroper and Innsbruck Festival of Early Music.
In the season 2022/23, Rupert Enticknap will be singing the role of Michael in the new production of Georg Friedrich Haas’s opera Thomas at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin.
Opera / Music theatre:
Francesco Cavalli L’Ormindo (Olindus, Cupid, L’Ormindo)
Pietro Antonio Cesti Oronte (La Dori)
Brett Dean Hamlet (Rosencrantz)
Florian Leopold Gassman L’opera Seria (Caverna)
Philip Glass Akhnaten (Akhnaten)
Christoph Willibald Gluck Ezio (Valentiniano)
Georg Friedrich Haas Thomas (Dr. Dürer, Michael)
Georg Friedrich Handel Giulio Cesare (Tolomeo), Xerxes (Arsamenes), Tamerlano (Tamerlano), Agrippina (Ottone), Hercules (Lichas), Jephtha (Hamor), Rinaldo (Eustazio, Mago Christiano), Messiah (Alto), Orlando (Orlando), Radamisto (Radamisto), Riccardo Primo (Riccardo Primo), Rodelinda (Unulfo)
Georg Friedrich Handel, Nicola Antonio Porpora etc. Farinelli and the King (Farinelli)
Georg Friedrich Handel, Leonardo Vinci Elpidia (Olindo), Il Semiramide (Mirteo)
Mauricio Kagel Mare Nostrum (The European)
Giovanni Legrenzi Il divisione del Mondo (Mercurio)
Clausio Monteverdi Il ritorno d’ulisse in Patria (L’umana Fragilita, Pisandro), L’incoronazione di Poppea (Ottone)
Olga Neuwirth The Lost Highway (Mystery Man)
Henry Purcell The Fairy Queen (Secrecy, Alto), Dido and Aeneas (Sorceress)
Max Richter Sum (Man)
Georg Caspar Schürmann Die getreue Alceste (Admetus)
Agostino Steffani Amor Vien Dal Destino (Giove, Coralto)
Antonio Vivaldi L’Oracolo in Messenia (Anassandro)
19 November 2022, 19:00, Montforter Zwischentöne, Montforthaus, Feldkirch
Programme: George Frideric Handel Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, Oratorio, HWV 46a
Cast: Ensemble Concerto Stella Matutina, Alfredo Bernardini (conductor), Ilka Seifert (stage direction), Rupert Enticknap (countertenor), Jan Kobow (tenor), Maria Ladurner (soprano), Marine Madelin (mezzo-soprano)
25/27/29 June 2023, 19:30
1/3/5/7/9 July 2023, 19:30, Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin
Programme: Georg Friedrich Haas Thomas
Cast: Staatskapelle Berlin, Max Renne (director), Barbora Horáková (regie), Jaka Mihelač (Thomas), Gabriel Rollinson (Matthias), Rupert Enticknap (Michael) a.o.
As Oronte, Rupert Enticknap, with his pleasantly-timbred countertenor, brought out the alternating cycles of emotions with the implied expression of anger and melancholy.
Das Opernglas, W. Kutzschbach, October 2019
Countertenor Rupert Enticknap has a monochromatic singing voice, but one with an enjoyable timbre. He played Oronte as a highly emotional being, who appeared at times to be on the point of a nervous breakdown, (…). It was an expressive reading, to which he brought an impressive melancholic lilt. He displayed agility and delicacy in bringing his character alive.
OperaWire, Alan Neilson, 1 September 2019
The cast has unusual strength in depth: countertenors Rupert Enticknap and Christopher Lowrey relish the Tweedledum-and-Tweedledee pairing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (…) this is the true essence of Shakespeare’s play, superbly sung and acted – a riveting evening.
Bachtrack, June 2017
This is an impressive labour of love from all concerned at a level which only Glyndebourne at its best can manage… Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – countertenors Rupert Enticknap and Christopher Lowrey [are] brilliant (…) the total work of art cries out to be seen and heard.
Arts Desk, June 2017
(…) outstanding performances (…) Rupert Enticknap and Christopher Lowrey as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, here a Tweedledum and Tweedledee pair of countertenors, inherit most of the comedy.
Financial Times, June 2017
(…) countertenors Christopher Lowery and Rupert Enticknap introduced an element of fun in their Tweedledum and Tweedledee double act as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. (… ) Such an all-star cast of opera singers has no right to act so brilliantly.
Express, June 2017
The role of the emperor seemed both vocally and dramatically tailored to fit Rupert Enticknap.
Frankfurter Neue Presse, December 2016
Rupert Enticknap’s rich and glowing countertenor warmed his portrayal of the faithful herald, Lichas.
The Observer, March 2015
Rupert Enticknap takes some risks to draw his murderous henchman Anassandro, but is repaid with excellent characterisation.
Bachtrack, February 2015
Rupert Enticknap carries on the transformation of the peoples, becomes a Frenchman from the Spaniard to the Greek, and sings with his sensual countertenor through the cultures.
Der Standard, February 2014
(…) the changeable Rupert Enticknap, draws diverse Europeans with sensitive countertenortones.
Die Presse, February 2014
Audio recordings:
William Byrd If Women could be fair
Antonio Caldara Soffri Dolce
Pietro Antonio Cesti La Dori
Naxos Records (2020)
Accademia Bizantina
Ottavio Dantone, conductor
Emőke Baráth, soprano
Rupert Enticknap, countertenor
Federico Sacchi, bass
Bradley Smith, tenor; i. a.
