John Savournin

Bass-baritone

SINGING

In the 2019/20 season, British Bass-baritone John Savournin’s current and future roles include Priest Fotis (The Greek Passion) and Carl Olsen (Street Scene), both for Opera North, Zuniga (Carmen) for Welsh National Opera and his 5th return to Opera Holland Park as Baron Zeta (The Merry Widow) and as The Pirate King (The Pirates Of Penzance – a co-production with Charles Court Opera, which he also directs). In the 2018/19 season, roles included Angelotti (Tosca) and Sarastro (The Magic Flute), both for Opera North, and returning to Opera Holland Park to sing Count Horn (Un ballo in maschera) and play the silent role, Sante (Il Segreto di Susanna).

Guest appearances in previous seasons have included Leporello (Don Giovanni), Alidoro (La Cenerentola), Count Horn (Un ballo), Peter Quince (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Schaunard (La bohème) and Armchair/Tree (L’enfant el les sortileges), all for Opera North; 2nd Gunman (Kiss me, Kate) for Opera North/Welsh National Opera; debuts as Leporello (Don Giovanni), Colline (La bohème), and The Immigration Officer (Flight), all for Opera Holland Park, and his debut as Alidoro (La Cenerentola), Scottish Opera.

With a passion the contemporary music, John has performed Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King for the Lands End Ensemble, Calgary, and the Ossian Ensemble. He also has a fondness for the Operetta repertoire, often performing with the National G&S Opera Company, and Charles Court Opera.

Recent concert engagements include Fortitudo (Applausus) for Classical Opera Company at Cadogan Hall; Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room recitals as a Yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians/Park Lane Young Artist; Narrating fairytales for Christmas concerts with the Orchestra of Opera North; Messiah for Raymond Gubbay at Bridgewater Hall, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall; Mozart’s Requiem for the Three Choirs Festival / Philharmonia. He sang the world premiere of Roxburgh’s A cycle of two songs, written for him and pianist James Young, at Wigmore Hall in 2014.

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“John Savournin invests his mock-serious farewell to his coat (it’s off to the pawnshop) with immense dignity”

EVENING STANDARD

“John Savournin displays a warm voice and terrific comedic stage skills as his sidekick Leporello.”

METRO

John also enjoys a varied concert, chamber music and contemporary music schedule.

A lover of chamber and contemporary music, John recently performed Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King (Ossian Ensemble and Lands End Ensemble, Canada), Kagel’s …den 24.XII.1931 (Warehouse Ensemble, conducted by Edwin Roxburgh); The Boy who lived down the Lane by Diana Soh at the Performer’s Voice Symposium in Singapore and Stephen Oliver’s A Man of Feeling.

He sings the role of Bartolo on the BBC Singers / BBC Concert orchestra recording of Alfred Cellier’s The Mountebanks for Dutton Epoch and he made the premier recording of Peter Maxwell Davies’ A Sea of Cold Flame for Ayriel Classical.

Chamber and concert engagements have also included Elijah, Creation, Bach’s B Minor Mass, and Christus/Bass arias in Bach’s St. John & Matthew Passions. John has also worked regularly with Counterpoise, a contemporary chamber ensemble dedicated to performing melodramas. With Counterpoise, he has performed works including John Casken’s Deadly Pleasures (Brighton Festival), Walton’s Facade and David Matthew’s Acteon. He performed the UK premiere of Wynton Marsalis’ A Fiddler’s Tale at the Forge in Camden and Strauss’ Enoch Arden, Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale and Walton’s Henry V.

John studied with a scholarship at Trinity College of Music, where he was awarded the Founder’s Prize for Excellence and the Paul Simms Opera Prize. He sang Dr. Hasselbacher in a revival of Malcolm Williamson’s rarely heard Our Man in Havana, Plutone in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, the Narrator/Mysterious Man in Into the Woods, and the bass solos in Tippett’s A Child of our Time. Operatic roles to date also include Dulcamara (L’Elisir d’Amore), Don Giovanni, Don Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia), and Don Fernando (Fidelio).

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“A force of nature”

The Telegraph

Directing

John has created productions both as Artistic Director of Charles Court Opera, and as a freelance director, deviser, and writer. Upcoming productions include The Nativity Panto and Iolanthe for CCO, and The Pirates of Penzance for CCO in collaboration with Opera Holland Park.

Alongside his singing career, John has created productions of opera and musical theatre for his award-winning chamber opera company Charles Court Opera, and recently made his main stage directorial debut with Opera North. Recent directing engagements include his main stage debut with Trial by Jury, as part of Opera North’s season of Little Greats; Il Barbiere di Siviglia and The Magic Flute, both for CCO at the Iford Arts Festival.

He has written and directed Opera North’s ‘Whistle-stop’ productions to date as part of their Outreach programme, wrote adaptations of The Magic Flute and Cenerentola for the Royal Opera House’s Opera dots series, and devised an abridged The Pirates of Penzance for Opera Holland Park’s Inspire Programme. He is the Education Manager for the Concordia Foundation, programming and creating their Young Audiences projects.

John founded CCO in 2005, and recent productions for them also include The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore. He has written/directed their 13 pantomimes to date, described by the Telegraph as an “annual madhouse” and he also directed an evening entitled ‘Avant garde’ for CCO, including Pierre Lunaire, Eight Songs for a Mad King and a series of Beckett shorts. For more information and a full list of productions John has directed for CCO, please visit their website: www.charlescourtopera.com

Elsewhere, John has directed a rare revival of Sondheim and Rogers’ musical Do I Hear a Waltz? at the newly opened Park Theatre in London; Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Tosca for the Musique Cordiale Festival in the South of France; Wolf Ferrari’s Susanna’s Secret; Handel’s Julio Caesare; The Falcon (play – world-premiere); Acis and Galatea; Cosi fan tutte; Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri and Mozart’s Impresario.