Triple threat Canadian tenor Spencer Britten has been praised for having “the poise and confidence of a seasoned professional” (Bachtrack) and boasting a “full voice and ringing tone” (La Scena Musicale). Britten recently completed his second season as a member of the International Opera Studio at Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, where he portrayed a variety of roles in operas including The Makropulos Affair, Die Zauberflöte, Der Rosenkavalier, Le Cinesi, Die Arabische Nacht, La Fanciulla del West, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Rigoletto. He also recently made his house and role debut at the Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria, singing the role of Lindoro in L’Italiana in Algeri.
The pervious season saw Britten return to Canada to perform in the world premiere of Chinatown, a new opera from composer Alice Ping Yee Ho, at the Vancouver Playhouse followed by a role in Opera Atelier’s Dido and Aeneas. Subsequently, he performed in Händel’s Messiah at the Edmonton Opera, A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Vancouver Opera, and appeared as a soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
Britten spent two seasons with the Glimmerglass Festival, where he showed his aptitude for both musical theatre and operatic repertoire in productions of Showboat, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Silent Night, and Trouble in Tahiti as well as the original Jerome Robbins choreography of West Side Story, and was selected as one of several cast members to continue with the production to Lyric Opera of Kansas City and The Atlanta Opera. In his second season at Glimmerglass, Britten acted as dance captain and performed the role of Léon in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, which he later reprised at the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles with “sweet clarity” (Ôlyrix).
Britten has performed as tenor soloist with the Choeur Metropolitain in Montréal with whom he worked with conductors François A. Ouimet, Pierre Tourville, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and Dvořák’s Mass in D Major. He was recently a finalist in the Opera Crown Tbilisi International Voice Competition and has received career development grants from the Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation for Young Canadian Opera Singers and the Vancouver Opera Guild. He was a member at L’Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, after having completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from the University of British Columbia and training since the age of six at the Caulfield School of Dance and Coastal Sound Music Academy in Port Moody, BC, Canada.
