Douglas Williams, bass-baritone
“The gifted young bass-baritone Douglas Williams” (Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times) combines a “formidable stage presence” (Seattle Times) with “a bass voice of splendid solidity” (Bernard Jacobson, Music Web International), making him one of the most appealing singing actors of the younger generation. He has collaborated with leading conductors including Helmut Rilling, Sir Neville Marriner, John Nelson, and Christoph Rousset in such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Stuttgart’s Mozart-Saal, and the Frankfurt Alte Oper.
In the 2011–2012 season, Douglas made his European stage debut at Opéra de Nice singing the role of Orcone in Alessandro Scarlatti’s Tigrane; reprised in New York a role he premiered as a Tanglewood Fellow in It Happens Like This, by Charles Wuorinen; and sang Compère in Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts with the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Apollo in Purcell’s Apollo e Dafne for Pocket Opera.
Other recent appearances include Laurence in Gretry’s Le Magnifique with Opera Lafayette; Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas andPolyphemus in Handel’s Acis and Galatea, both with the Boston Early Music Festival; and his European debut at Paris’s Salle Pleyel in Purcell’s King Arthur, with Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques.
Douglas’s “superb sense of drama” (The New York Times) is as apparent on the concert stage as it is in opera. Highlights include Handel’s Messiah with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Cathedral Choral Society; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion for the Chicago Bach Project with John Nelson and Soli Deo Gloria; and Bach’s St. John Passion with Les Talens Lyriques. He has appeared as a soloist with the Houston Symphony, Biava String Quartet, the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra, the Clarion Society of New York, Emmanuel Music, and the Yale Schola Cantorum.