Filipe Manu

Tenor

New Zealand-Tongan tenor Filipe Manu is one of the most exciting young talents to graduate from the world-renowned Jette Parker Young Artist programme at the Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden. Manu’s numerous accolades include first prize at the 61st Tenor Viñas Competition at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the New Zealand performer of the year award and first prize in Australia’s most prestigious singing competition, the IFAC Handa Singing Competition and the Lexus Song Quest. Manu is already making important debuts on the most prestigious international stages, including the Opéra National de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona and Hamburg State Opera.

In the 2024/25 season Manu makes several role debuts: Fenton Falstaff at Glyndebourne Festival, Count Almaviva Il Barbiere di Siviglia Opéra de Lille and as Paris La Belle Helene at Opéra de Toulon. He also sings Ernesto Don Pasquale with Scottish Opera and Handel’s Messiah with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

 

Last season marked some pivotal career moments so far: Ferrando in a highly anticipated new production of Cosi Fan Tutte by Barrie Kosky at Wiener Staatsoper, Eduardo in Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel at Opéra National de Paris, Ernesto Don Pasquale at Staatsoper Hamburg and Nemorino L’elisir d’amore in Glyndebourne.

 

Further recent engagements include Ferrando in Hamburg and with Opera Australia; and Tamino in David McVicar’s vivid production of Die Zauberflöte at The Royal Ballet and Opera.

 

From 2021 until 2023 Manu was a member of the newly formed ensemble at Konzert Theater Bern, his roles there included Tamino, Ruodi Guillaume Tell, Arbace Idomeneo, Tebaldo I Capuletti e i Montecchi and Froh Das Rheingold. During his time with the Royal Ballet and Opera, Filipe was seen as Gastone La Traviata, Erster Gefangener Fidelio and Father/Charlie in The Seven Deadly Sins/Mahogonny Songspiel.

 

Engagements on the concert platform include Handel’s Messiah with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; his debut at the Edinburgh International Festival as the tenor soloist in the opening concert of the festival: Stravinsky Pulcinella under the baton of Dalia Stasevska, and as Officer Ariadne auf Naxos, conducted by Lothar Koenigs. Other concert and recital performances include the Royal Ballet and Opera Stars Gala; singing alongside Lisette Oropesa and Gerald Finely, conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, Christmas Gala Concert conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, an intimate recital of song and arias with Sir Antonio Pappano and the Jette Parker Young Artist’s Summer Performance. He has also appeared at the Royal Albert Hall in Handel’s Messiah and at Wigmore Hall in recital.

 

His formative training was gained at the University of Waikato through a Bachelor of Music and postgraduate diploma and on the Dame Malvina Major Young Artist programme with New Zealand Opera. He is a former member of the New Zealand Opera school, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Opera School and both inaugural Opera programmes for the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa foundation and the Dame Malvina Major foundation.

 

Performances

DECEMBER 14 2024

Tenor soloist, Messiah; New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Wellington, New Zealand

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FEBRUARY 27 2025

Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de Lille

Lille, France

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MARCH 2 2025

Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de Lille

Lille, France

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MARCH 4 2025

Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de Lille

Lille, France

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MARCH 6 2025

Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de Lille

Lille, France

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More Dates

Performances

DECEMBER 14 2024Tenor soloist, Messiah; New Zealand Symphony OrchestraWellington, New ZealandBuy Tickets
FEBRUARY 27 2025Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de LilleLille, FranceBuy Tickets
MARCH 2 2025Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de LilleLille, FranceBuy Tickets
MARCH 4 2025Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de LilleLille, FranceBuy Tickets
MARCH 6 2025Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de LilleLille, FranceBuy Tickets
MARCH 8 2025Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de LilleLille, FranceBuy Tickets
MARCH 10 2025Conte d'Almaviva, Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Opéra de LilleLille, FranceBuy Tickets
MAY 13 2025Paris, La Belle Hélène; Opéra de ToulonTOULON, FranceBuy Tickets
MAY 15 2025Paris, La Belle Hélène; Opéra de ToulonTOULON, FranceBuy Tickets
MAY 16 2025Paris, La Belle Hélène; Opéra de ToulonTOULON, FranceBuy Tickets
MAY 18 2025Paris, La Belle Hélène; Opéra de ToulonTOULON, FranceBuy Tickets

Press

Filipe Manu communicated Tamino’s lovestruck wonder in ‘Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön’, which throbbed eloquently with passion and nobility, the phrasing yearning and reaching, the tone light and youthful.

Opera Today

Cannily, both the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet seized the opportunity to showcase some of their youngest and most personable rising stars. Pick of the singers (who are all being nurtured on the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker scheme for young artists) was probably the New Zealand-Tongan tenor Filipe Manu, whose future already looks secure in those fiendishly high-lying Rossini and Donizetti roles to judge from the insouciant top D he interpolated into one of his numbers here.

The Times

Filipe Manu’s Fenton again shone for his lyrical sensibility in his touching duet

Music OMH

Born in Australia, raised in New Zealand, Tongan by ancestry, the exciting young tenor Filipe Manu singing ‘Una furtiva lagrima’  from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore is at home in the lush Italian repertoire and surely has an assured future in 19th-century verismo, with its energy and heart. You could almost pick out of the faces of composers Puccini and Leoncavallo beckoning from the wings. They want Filipe Manu on their team too.

Culture Whisper

MWA