Gerald Finley
Baritone superstar Gerald Finley has garnered acclaim in all the major Mozart baritone roles. Yet he has also achieved high praise for the many difficult contemporary roles he has created, among them: J. Robert Oppenheimer in Adams' Doctor Atomic, Harry Heegan in Turnage's The Silver Tassie, the title character in Picker's Fantastic Mr. Fox. If you suspect there is a hole in Finley's repertory, there isn't. He has sung the title role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Marcello in Puccini's La bohème, and many others from late 19th and early 20th operas. Moreover, Finley has appeared in concert and recital in a vast array of works by Handel, Schubert, Schumann, Duparc, Ives, Britten, Maxwell-Davies, and more. He has appeared at major operatic and concert venues around the world. Not surprisingly, Finley, whose rich voice is usually classed as bass-baritone, has made numerous recordings for several labels.
Finley was born in Montreal, Canada, on January 30, 1960. He was a chorister at St. Matthew's Church in Ottawa and then with a large variety of other choirs around the Ottawa area. He enrolled in the music program at the University of Ottawa but soon moved to England to study at Cambridge University (King's College), and London's Royal College of Music. In the early years of his career, he sang with the Cambridge Singers, and then, from 1986-1988, with the Glyndebourne Opera. In 1989, Roger Norrington cast him as Papageno in a production of Die Zauberflöte, and the following year, Finley toured in the role with the Glyndebourne company. Finley's career was soon in meteoric ascent, with notable debuts at the major opera houses, including at the Met as Papageno (1998). With all his success, Finley also took chances, singing the role of Jaufré Rudel in Kaija Saariaho's L'amour de loin at its premiere in 2000 at the Salzburg Festival. Among Finley's more acclaimed recordings is his Songs by Samuel Barber, on Hyperion, which won a Classic FM Gramophone Award in 2008 as Best Solo Vocal Recording.
As his voice deepened in middle age, Finley has expanded his repertory into Tchaikovsky (Eugene Onegin, which he sang at Covent Garden in 2008), Wagner (he played Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger at the Glyndebourne Opera in 2011), and Verdi (playing Falstaff with the Canadian Opera Company in 2014-2015). In 2015, he gave the premiere of Saariaho's True Fire, which was dedicated to him. Finley's recorded repertory likewise expanded, with an album of Shostakovich songs in 2014 and one of works by Einojuhani Rautavaara the following year in which he was a soloist. In 2016, Finley issued Sibelius: In the Stream of Life, an album of Sibelius songs, mostly arranged for baritone and orchestra. He has continued to record for Hyperion but has also appeared on the Ondine and Chandos labels. In 2020, Finley was featured on a recording of Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen, with the London Symphony and Simon Rattle, as well as a recording of songs by Peter Lieberson, with the Finnish Radio Symphony under Hannu Lintu.
Finley became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2014 and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017.
© Robert Cummings & James Manheim /TiVo
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Janáček: The Cunning Little Vixen, Sinfonietta
Sir Simon Rattle, London Symphony Orchestra, Lucy Crowe, Gerald Finley, Sophia Burgos
Opera - Released by LSO Live on Sep. 4, 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Saariaho : True Fire, Ciel d'hiver & Trans (Live)
Gerald Finley, Xavier de Maistre, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hannu Lintu
Classical - Released by Ondine on May 10, 2019
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
John Rutter Christmas Album
Stephen Varcoe, Ruth Holton, Gerald Finley, Cambridge Singers, City Of London Sinfonia, John Rutter
Classical - Released by Collegium on Sep. 24, 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rautavaara: Rubáiyát, Balada, Canto V...
Gerald Finley, Mika Pohjonen, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Helsinki Music Centre Choir, John Storgårds
Classical - Released by Ondine on May 13, 2016
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Jun. 3, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Christmas Night: Carols of the Nativity (Remastered 2020)
John Rutter, The Cambridge Singers, City Of London Sinfonia, Nicholas Sears, Ruth Holton, Gerald Finley
Ambient/New Age - Released by Collegium on Jan. 1, 1987
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ives: A Song - For Anything: 31 Art Songs for Voice and Piano
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Sep. 1, 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lieberson: Songs of Love and Sorrow & The Six Realms
Anssi Karttunen, Gerald Finley, The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hannu Lintu
Classical - Released by Ondine on Sep. 4, 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Schwanengesang, D. 957 – Brahms: 4 Serious Songs, Op. 121
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Sep. 27, 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Winterreise, D. 911
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Mar. 2, 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Liszt: The Complete Songs, Vol. 3
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Mar. 2, 2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann: Dichterliebe, Op. 48 & Other Heine Settings
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Sep. 1, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Proud Songsters: English Solo Song
Mélodies - Released by Kings College Cambridge on Mar. 19, 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Songs of Travel / HOLMAN: The Centred Passion (Ralph Vaughan Williams - Robert Louis Stevenson - Derek Holman)
Classical - Released by CBC on Jan. 1, 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Barber: Songs - Op. 13, Hermit, Dover Beach etc.
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Nov. 1, 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Stanford: Songs of the Fleet, Songs of the Sea & A Ballad of the Fleet
Richard Hickox, BBC National Orchestra Of Wales, Gerald Finley, BBC National Chorus of Wales
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released by Chandos on May 1, 2006
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Britten: Songs & Proverbs of William Blake; Tit for Tat & Other Songs
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Jun. 1, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vaughan Williams: Overture to The Wasps & A Sea Symphony
Richard Hickox, London Symphony Orchestra, Susan Gritton, Gerald Finley, London Symphony Chorus
Symphonies - Released by Chandos on Feb. 1, 2007
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Les grands airs d'opéra (Volume 22)
Opera Extracts - Released by Chandos on Feb. 1, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
In the Stream of Life - Songs by Sibelius
Gerald Finley, Edward Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Mélodies - Released by Chandos on Jan. 1, 2017
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Shostakovich: 6 Romances, Op. 62a, Scottish Ballade - Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Op. 145a
Gerald Finley, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Sanderling
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released by Ondine on Mar. 3, 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo