Salome 2024 Programme

BIOGRAPHIES
ALEX McKISSICK
TENOR
NARRABOTH
KEVIN NEVILLE
BASS
A CAPPADOCIAN
AARON O’HARE
TENOR
FOURTH JEW
WILLIAM PEARSON
TENOR
THIRD JEW
American tenor Alex McKissick has
sung leading roles in Bernstein’s
Candide, Puccini’s La bohème,
Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, Verdi’s
Otello, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte
and Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von
Atlantis among others, performing with Washington
National Opera, Aspen Music Festival, San Diego
Opera, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines
Metro Opera, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Wolf
Trap Opera, North Carolina Opera, and the Georg
Solti Accademia, working with conductors Eun Sun
Kim, Daniele Callegari, Keri-Lynn Wilson, Yves Abel,
Steven Mercurio, Nicole Paiement, as well as stage
directors David Alden, Francesca Zambello, Tomer
Zvulun, and Octavio Cardenas. He has participated
in masterclasses with Fabio Luisi and Emmanuel
Villuame, and he recorded Bernstein’s Songfest,
conducted by James Judd, on the Naxos label. He
received his Bachelors of Music and Masters degree
from the Juilliard School of Music and is an alumnus
of the Cafritz Young Artist Program at the Washington
National Opera.
Kevin Neville is a bass from
Limerick city. While on the Northern
Ireland Opera Studio, he played
Don Alfonso in a reduced version
of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. At the
Blackwater Valley Opera Festival
and Mananan International Festival of Music he
played the Regent in Balfe’s The Sleeping Queen.
He made his debut with Irish National Opera in
Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. Since then he has
gone on to play L’ufficiale del Registro in Puccini’s
Madama Butterfly as well as Lerchenau’s servant and
Boots in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. He created the
roles of George de La Hare in Fiona Linnane’s No. 2
Pery Square and Old George in Robert Ely’s 1936:
Fishing for the Tête à Tête contemporary opera festival
in London. He has performed as a concert soloist
at the National Concert Hall, St Patrick’s Cathedral,
Dublin, Ulster Hall, Belfast, and the University Concert
Hall, Limerick, in repertoire that included Handel’s
Messiah as well as Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Die erste
Walpurgisnacht.
Irish tenor Aaron O’Hare
transitioned from baritone in
2021. Last year he sang Spoletta
in Puccini’s Tosca for Northern
Ireland Opera, having spent most
of the year touring with English
Touring Opera. As an associate artist with Welsh
National Opera, he sang the title role in Mozart’s
Don Giovanni on tour, Stárek in Janáček’s Jenůfa
and March Hare/White Knight in Will Todd’s Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland. In 2021 he also sang
Schaunard in Puccini’s La bohème for Northern
Ireland Opera and in the premiere of Michael Gallen’s
Elsewhere, an opera about the Monaghan Soviet
of 2019, at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He joined
Garsington Opera’s Alvarez Young Artists’ programme
in 2016 and was a member of Opera Holland Park
Young Artists in 2018. He played Mike in John
Adams’s I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw
the Sky for Opéra National de Lyon’s Opera Studio in
2020.
William completed his MA in
Opera Performance from the David
Seligman Opera School at the Royal
Welsh College of Music and Drama
along with his BMus (Hons) in Music
Performance under the tutelage of
Adrian Thompson. He was a member of INO’s core
chorus in 2022–23, and played the role of Faninal’s
Major Domo in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, as well as
covering the roles of the Italian Tenor and Landlord.
He is currently a member of the INO Opera Studio.
His roles include Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte,
Quint in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, the Mayor in
Britten’s Albert Herring, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don
Giovanni, Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di
Siviglia and Don Basilio in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.
As well as opera work, he is an avid oratorio and mass
singer and regularly performs Mozart’s Requiem,
Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s
St. Matthew Passion.
38
39