Huw Montague Rendall

Winner of the 2024 Oper! Awards for Best Newcomer, this season sees the release of Montague Rendall’s debut album recording, Contemplation, with Warner/Erato where he is an exclusive recording artist. His opera engagements start with David McVicar’s loved production of Le nozze di Figaro as the Count at the Royal Ballet & Opera. He then makes a very exciting house and role debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in the title role in Billy Budd before returning to the Opéra national de Paris for a highly anticipated new production of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Other engagements include Eisenstein Die Fledermaus with Les Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski in Baden-Baden and Paris; Count Le nozze di Figaro in a new production at Glyndebourne Festival; a European tour with Pygmalion Ensemble and Raphaël Pichon of Bach’s Johannespassion; his Wigmore Hall recital debut; Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch with Erin Morley and Malcolm Martineau; and a recital with Joseph Middleton at Pembroke College Cambridge

Last season’s highlights include Eisenstein Die Fledermaus with Staatsoper Hamburg and Les Musiciens du Louvre on tour at the Teatro Real and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées; his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro; his first Don Giovanni in concert at Opéra de Rouen; and a huge triumph in the title role of Pelléas Pelléas et Mélisande at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. On the concert platform, he performed a solo recital at the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg and made his debut with the Musikkollegium Winterthur, singing Mahler’s heartbreaking Kindertotenlieder.

Previously Montague Rendall made a series of extraordinary debuts: the title role in Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet in a new production created at Komische Oper Berlin; his company debut at Opéra national de Paris with a double appearance: Papageno Die Zauberflöte and Mercutio in the premiere of Thomas Jolly’s Roméo et Juliette; Papageno in a new production of Die Zauberflöte at Opéra National du Rhin which was also a vehicle for his hugely acclaimed debut at Royal Ballet & Opera and at Lyric Opera of Chicago; Guglielmo Così fan tutte at Staatsoper Hamburg and Glyndebourne; Pelléas Pelléas et Mélisande at Santa Fe Opera and at Opéra de Rouen Normandie; Malatesta in a critically acclaimed production of Don Pasquale at Glyndebourne Festival; Le nozze di Figaro at Opéra National de Lorraine; and Harlequin Ariadne auf Naxos at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

Equally at home in concert and recital, he was heard as Christus in a European tour of the Bach Trilogy: The Life of Christ with Raphaël Pichon and Ensemble Pygmalion, which comprised three oratorios: The Christmas Oratorio, St John Passion and The Easter Oratorio; Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem together with the Dutch National Opera at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; Ned Keene Peter Grimes at the Enescu Festival; a “Mozart Matinee” series with Pichon at the Salzburg Festival; Richard Blackford’s Pietà at the Cadogan Hall with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus & Orchestra; Mendelssohn Die Erste Walpurgisnacht with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Duruflé Requiem with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra; and many concerts in the UK ranging from solo song recitals to sacred works by Brahms, Handel, Stainer, Fauré, Finzi and Vaughan Williams. A dedicated recitalist, his most recent appearances include a recital at the Opéra de Lille, a recital with Hélio Vida in Nancy and Die Schöne Müllerin with pianist Gary Matthewman for Lancaster Arts.

Montague Rendall’s debut album, Contemplation, was released in September 2024 to high acclaim, receiving 5 star reviews in The Guardian, saying that this “debut album from the British baritone lives up to the hype, showcasing his velvet and nuanced singing with room to spare”.

An alumnus of the Royal College of Music, Montague Rendall trained under the tutorage of Russell Smythe, having previously studied under David Rendall and Philip Doghan. In summer 2016 Montague Rendall was a Jerwood Young Artist with Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where he sang the role of Fiorello Il barbiere di Siviglia, for which he was awarded the much-coveted John Christie Award 2016. The following summer he joined the prestigious Young Artist Programme at the Salzburg Festspiele and was a member of the International Opera Studio in Zürich from 2016 to 2018.