Simon O’Neill

Born in New Zealand in 1971, the tenor Simon O’Neill trained at the Victoria University of Wellington, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard Opera Center in New York. He made his debuts at the Royal Opera House in London and at the Salzburg Festival in 2005 and, in 2006, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Since then, he has been a regular guest on the world’s leading stages and today mainly performs such heroic tenor roles as Wagner’s Tristan, Siegfried, Tannhäuser, Parsifal, and Lohengrin; Florestan from Beethoven’s Fidelio; Verdi’s Otello; and the Drum Major in Berg’s Wozzeck. O’Neill has worked with Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Harding, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Christian Thielemann, and Simone Young, among others. He last performed Waldemar from Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder in April 2024 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle.

August 2024