The Australian-born bass-baritone Derek Welton is recognised as one of the leading voices of his generation, with a repertoire ranging from Bach and Handel to the present day.
He is a regular guest at companies such as the Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bayreuth Festival, Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Hamburg State Opera, Paris Opera, Dutch National Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago, in roles such as Wotan/Wanderer (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Amfortas and Klingsor (Parsifal), König Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Orest (Elektra), Voland (Der Meister und Margarita), Bluebeard (Bluebeard’s Castle), Pizarro (Fidelio), Forester (The Cunning Little Vixen), Prus (The Makropulos Case), Saint-Bris (Les Huguenots), Pandolfe (Cendrillon) and Mozart’s Figaro.
Derek has performed with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, Hallé Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Concerto Köln in repertoire including Bach’s St Matthew Passion, St John Passion and Mass in B minor, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Tippett’s A Child of our Time.
Welton will return to the Bayreuth Festival in 2024 as Amfortas. Highlights of his 2024/2025 season will include Pizarro in Fidelio at Washington National Opera, King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, the title role of The Flying Dutchman and Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wanderer in Siegfried with Concerto Köln and the Journalist in Otto Ketting’s Ithaka at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Concerts will include Mahler’s Symphony No 8 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and West Australian Symphony Orchestra, a concert of Wagner highlights with the Washington National Opera, Messiah at the Vienna Musikverein, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem at the Rome Opera, The Dream of Gerontius with the WDR Symphony Orchestra and Bruckner’s Mass in F minor with the Vienna Symphony.
Derek Welton’s discography includes performances as Wotan in Das Rheingold (Naxos), Amfortas in Parsifal (Deutsche Grammophon), Orest in Elektra (Unitel Edition), Der Pförtner in Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane (Naxos), the Herald in Lohengrin (Deutsche Grammophon), Creonte in Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo (Pinchgut Live), in the title role of Martinů’s The Epic of Gilgamesh (Supraphon Records), two recordings as soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 (Ondine and Brattle Media) and a solo CD of Vaughan Williams songs with Iain Burnside for Albion Records.
Derek Welton holds degrees in Linguistics and German from the University of Melbourne and in Music from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
