
BIOGRAPHY
Baritone Mark Stone was born in London and studied Mathematics at King's College, Cambridge and singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1998 he was awarded the Decca Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards.
His recent operatic performances have included acclaimed Wagnerian role debuts as Gunther in Götterdämmerung at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Alberich (Das Rheingold and Siegfried) at the Longborough Festival and Wotan (Die Walküre) with Trondheim Opera and Grimeborn Opera Festival (for which he won the 2022 Offie Award for Best Opera Performance).
He also recently sang Sharpless (Madama Butterfly) for Welsh National Opera, Marcello (La Bohème) for the Copenhagen Opera Festival, Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) with Welsh National Opera and Valencia Palau de les Arts, Balstrode (Peter Grimes) at Opera Queensland, Australia, Capulet in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette for Malmö Opera, the King in George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg and a return to the Opera Philadelphia for Protector in George Benjamin's Written on Skin.
He recently made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Musikverein Wien, singing Thomas Adès's Totentanz, returned to Santa Fe Opera to sing Rene Gallimard in the world première of Huang Ruo's M. Butterfly, and sang the role of Richard Nixon in John Adams's Nixon in China for Hannover Opera.
He made a magnificent role debut as Wozzeck in Geneva in 2017 in David McVicar’s production, and other roles include Don Giovanni for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, New Zealand Opera, English National Opera and the Toyko Symphony Orchestra; Valmont (Luca Francesconi’s Quartett) and Mountjoy (Britten’s Gloriana) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Il Conte (Le nozze di Figaro) for Welsh National Opera, Hamburg Opera and in Tampere, Finland; Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus) and Count (Elena Langer’s Figaro Gets a Divorce) for Welsh National Opera; Ned Keene (Peter Grimes) with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski and at the Beijing International Festival, and a tour to the U.S. as the Ferryman in Netia Jones’ acclaimed production of Britten’s Curlew River with the Britten Sinfonia. His many roles at the English National Opera have included Guglielmo, Marcello (La bohème), Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor), Silvio (I Pagliacci), Chou En-lai (Nixon in China) and Prince Yamadori in Anthony Minghella’s production of Madama Butterfly.
In the U.S. he has appeared regularly at the Opera Philadelphia where his roles include Ford (Falstaff), Germont Père (La Traviata), the title role in Gianni Schicchi, and Papageno (Die Zauberflöte). He has also sung Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) for Santa Fe Opera.
Highlights of the 23/24 season include a return to Hamburg Opera to sing the role of Il Mostro in Salvatore Sciarrino's new opera Venere e Adone, performances of the Protector in George Benjamin's Written on Skin with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Helsinki and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and his first complete Ring cycles as Alberich for Longborough Festival Opera.
A distinguished concert artist, he recently sang West Side Story with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Sir Antonio Pappano; St Matthew Passion with the Orchestre National de Lyon and Kenneth Montgomery, Thomas Adès’s Totentanz with Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony and Orchestre de Paris, a piece with which he is synonymous, having sung it with Thomas Adès and the New York Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra, the live recording from Boston being nominated for a Grammy in 2021.
Other concert highlights include Brahms’ Requiem with Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne, Britten’s War Requiem with Xian Zhang at Teatro alla Scala, Milan and Jaap van Zweden and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with the Helsinki Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with John Storgårds, and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and James Judd.
An acclaimed exponent of new music, he sang the world première of Lera Auerbach’s Requiem with Vladimir Jurowski and the Dresden Staatskapelle, Willem Jeths’s Hotel de Pekin with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Diepenbrock’s Les Elfes with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Sir James MacMillan’s John Passion with the BBC Concert Orchestra at King’s College, Cambridge, Gerald Barry's Beethoven with the Britten Sinfonia, Martin Suckling’s Candlebird with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Gerald Barry's Alice's Adventures Under Ground for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
His recordings include Eugene Onegin (extracts) with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Sir Antonio Pappano (EMI), Les Troyens with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis (LSO Live - Grammy winner), Billy Budd with the London Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding (Virgin / EMI - Grammy winner); Adès's Totentanz with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Adès (Deutsche Grammophon - Grammy nominee); Bellini’s La Straniera with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and David Parry (Opera Rara) and Mozart arias with the Classical Opera Company (Sony BMG). His solo recital discs - Quilter songs (Sony BMG), ‘English Love’, the complete Butterworth Songbook and the complete Delius Songbook (Stone Records) – have all received widespread praise.