Willard White

Willard White made his Royal Opera debut in 1996 as Timur (Turandot). Since then he has returned for Il Commendatore (Don Giovanni), Trinity Moses (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), Klingsor (Parsifal), Don Fernando (Fidelio), Priest Fotis (The Greek Passion), Les 4 Diables (Les Contes d’Hoffman) and the title role in Bluebeard’s Castle. Born in Jamaica, Willard studied at the Jamaican School of Music and the Juilliard School in New York. Since his operatic debut with the New York City Opera in 1974, he has sung regularly at the Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, San Francisco Opera, the opera houses of Munich, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Madrid and Paris, and at the Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg festivals. He was awarded the CBE in 1995 and was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2004 and was named Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in France in 2023. Engagements for 2025/26 include his Washington National Opera debut as Bartolo (Le nozze di Figaro), Superintendent Budd (Albert Herring) at English National Opera and Frere Bernard (Saint Francois D’Assise) at The Salzburg Festival.