Thomas Oliemans
Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans has established himself in recent years as a singer of outstanding musicality and intelligence combined with a compelling stage presence who is at home on the big opera stages as well as in the major concert venues and festivals around the world.

In repertoire that spans from Mozart to Strauss, he has appeared on the stages of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Mr. Redburn/Billy Budd, Schaunard/La Bohème), Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (Bill/Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Papageno/Die Zauberflöte, Hercule/Alceste), English National Opera ( Figaro/Le nozze di Figaro, Papageno/Die Zauberflöte), Teatro Real Madrid (Mr. Redburn/Billy Budd, Silvio de Nardi/Bomarzo, Hercule/Alceste), Göteborg Opera (Il Conte di Almaviva/Le nozze di Figaro, Hamlet/Hamlet), Salzburger Festspiele (Gonsalvo Fieschi/Die Gezeichneten), Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse (Lescaut/Manon Lescaut, Papageno/Die Zauberflöte), Opéra National du Rhin (Eisenstein/Die Fledermaus, Harlequin/Ariadne auf Naxos, Marcello/La Bohème) and Grand Théâtre de Genève (Guglielmo/Cosi fan tutte, Donner/Das Rheingold).

A regular guest at Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, he has appeared there as Don Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte, Papageno in Simon McBurney's production of Die Zauberflöte (which earned him their Prix d’Amis) Lescaut in Manon Lescaut as well as in productions of La Bohème, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg/Kothner, Hänsel und Gretel/Peter, Un ballo in maschera, Castor et Pollux as well as several leading roles in world premieres amongst others.

He works regularly with directors such as Deborah Warner, Simon McBurney, Pierre Audi, Christof Loy, Robert Carsen and Ivo van Hove.

Thomas Oliemans regularly collaborates with conducters such as Ivor Bolton, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Raphael Pichon, Marc Albrecht, Hartmut Haenchen, Antonello Manacorda, Jaap van Zweden, James Gaffigan and Vassily Petrenko and with orchestras like the Rotterdam Philhamonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Symphonieorchester Basel, the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Ensemble Pygmalion and Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

His vast concert repertoire includes Bach’s Passions, Shostakovich’s Michelangelo-Suite and Symphony no 14, Gustav Mahler‘s Das Lied von der Erde, all his orchestral song cycles as well as his 8th Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Elias, Richard Danielpour’s Elegies, Beethoven‘s Symphony no 9, Zemlinsky’s Lyrische Sinfonie, Larcher’s Alle Tage and Frank Martin’s Jedermann-Monologe.

A sought-after recitalist, he appears with pianists Malcolm Martineau, Roger Vignoles, Graham Johnson and Paolo Giacometti, amongst others, in Oxford, Cambridge, Vienna, Zürich, Basel, Antwerp, London (Wigmore Hall), Schloss Elmau, Tokyo and Paris. A regular guest at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, he presented together with Malcolm Martineau the three Schubert song-cycles there within the course of a week, as well as recitals wholly dedicated to Wolf and to Schumann. He curated the 2019 Delft Chamber Music Festival and was on the Jury of the 2019 International Vocal Competition s’Hertogenbosch, where he also appeared in recital with Graham Johnson.

His extensive discography includes Schubert’s three song cycles, Mendelssohn’s Elias with the Akamus Berlin and the RIAS Kammerchor under Hans-Georg Rademann, works by Frank Martin for baritone with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Christus in Bach’s Johannes-Passion with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and Frans Brüggen and Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Gordan Nikolic.

Highlights in 2020 include Beethoven’s Symphony no 9 with the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra under Ivor Bolton, Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, conducted by Peter Dijkstra, and Straus’ Die Frau ohne Schatten, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, both with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Bill in Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny in a production by Ivo van Hove at Dutch National Opera conducted by Markus Stenz, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Het Residentie Orkest and his house and role debut as Stolzius in Die Soldaten by Bernd Alois Zimmermann at Oper Köln.