No praise can be excessive for Damian Thantrey whose singing was a tour de force of versatility."
The Sunday Telegraph
“My laurels went to...Damian Thantrey, a vocally flexible young baritone who moves more intelligently than the rest and has vestiges of a fledgling Thomas Hampson.”
Nardo, La Finta Giardiniera, Garsington Opera: The Independent, Roderic Dunnett
“Cast adrift from familiar musical languages of mood and of character, Damian Thantrey does brilliantly to flesh out the character of Chao Lin...Weir’s beautifully taught passages of music and a tension between vocalist and orchestra in which subtle changes in instrumentation or vocal styles precipitate thrilling swings of mood or emotion. The director helps here, having cast a very striking looking actor in Thantrey, whose strong facial features flicker between the imperious road-builder and the vulnerable orphan.”
Chao Lin, A Night at the Chinese Opera, Scottish Opera: The Journal, Evan Beswick
“Thantrey’s voice has the agility and tonal incisiveness essential to the work [Winterreise] and as the performance progressed his ability to capture so many aspects of sadness became mesmerising.
He was magnificently aided in this by the profoundly sympathetic piano playing of Hewitt, whose characterisation and expressive instincts matched the singer’s to remarkable effect.”
Leicester Mercury
“The performance of Winterreise was meticulously prepared…the singing and piano playing had the intensity that one experiences only on hearing or seeing something breathtaking for the first time.. I can only add that in nearly 20 years at the University there have rarely been evenings that matched this one.”
Anthony Pither Director of Music, University of Leicester
Damian Thantrey read law at Clare College, Cambridge and qualified as a lawyer before studying singing at the Royal College of Music with Margaret Kingsley. On leaving the RCM, Damian was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal and held the Mills Williams Junior Fellowship. He is continuing his studies with Paul Farrington.
Damian's recent operatic roles have included Deputy Mayor (Roy Fiction) in the Royal Opera House premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole, Cinderella's Prince/Wolf Into the Woods, Franz/Lee Sunday in the Park with George, Mr Lindquist A Little Night Music at the Theatre du Chatelet, Apollo Orfeo Opéra National de Lorraine, the Traveller Death in Venice Opéra de Metz, Brother Seven Deadly Sins, Chao Lin A Night at the Chinese Opera and Eisenstein Die Fledermaus for Scottish Opera, the English Clerk Death in Venice Opera North, Faiz Babur in London The Opera Group, Onegin Eugene Onegin Blackheath Halls, Ferdinand The Duenna English Touring Opera, Adonis Venus and Adonis La Nuova Musica, the English Clerk Death in Venice at the Aldeburgh and Bregenz Festivals and at the Opéra de Lyon.
In recital, Damian has performed a variety of work across the UK and in London at the Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall and St John's, Smith Square. He has performed across the UK with Peter Hewitt in recitals of English and French song, as well as several performances of major cycles including Schubert's Winterreise, Schumann's Dichterliebe and Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer, Rückertlieder and Kindertotenlieder.