Aidan Edwards
Aidan Edwards from Halifax, West Yorkshire recently graduated with a BMus and MMus with distinction from the Royal Northern College of Music.
Operatic roles include Germont /’La Traviata’ (Opera Holland Park Young Artist/ Westminster Opera), Escamillo/’Carmen’ (Opera On Location), Marco/’Gianni Schicchi’ (Les Azuriales Young Artist Programme), Frank/ ‘Sreet Scene’ (RNCM), title role ‘Eugene Onegin’ (Opera on Location), Bottom/’A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (RNCM), Marcello/’La Bohème’ (Opera on Location), Larry/’Company’ (RNCM) and Drebyednetsov/’Paradise Moscow’ (RNCM). Aidan joined the chorus of Opera North’s 2016 production of Götterdämmerung and last year performed with Scottish Opera’s Pop-Up Roadshow in A Little Bit of La Bohème and A Little Bit of Pirates of Penzance.
Oratorio experience includes Handel’s Messiah, Brahms’ Requiem, Faure’s Requiem, Handel’s Israel in Egypt and Mozart’s Coronation Mass in C as well as being soloist in the UK Premier of Penderecki’s Seven Gates Of Jerusalem performed at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester in 2016. A keen recitalist, Aidan performs regularly with soprano Juliet Montgomery as the two perform a varied concert of opera and musical theatre favourites up and down the country, the highlight being an annual slot at the Edinburgh Arts Festival where they have sung since 2013. Aidan has performed on In Tune on BBC Radio 3 and was the winner of the Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award 2015.
Last year he returned to Scottish Opera for the Pop-Up Opera tour and sang in the National Gilbert & Sullivan Company’s autumn tour. This year he had great success in the role of Alfonso d’este in English Touring Opera’s ‘Lucrezia Borgia’ and returns to them next year to sing Lescaut in ‘Manon Lescaut’
“As Duke Alfonso, Aidan Edwards delivered that swagger with aplomb, a bass voice that was powerful and elegant even as it was filled with villainous venom. His partnership with the tenor was to be relished musically as much as it was dramatically. Edwards definitely won the battle of the entrance arias, potently announcing his vengefulness in ‘Vieni: la mia vendetta'” BACHTRACK, ETO Lucrezia Borgia
“We caught Aidan Edwards back in 2018 when he sang Germont in the Opera Holland Park Young Artists performance of Verdi’s La traviata and his feeling for 19th-century bel canto seems to have developed even further. His performance as Alfonso was one of those that had you regretting that at this period, baritones were not given big things do to. But Edwards brought a real sense of style and luxurious quality to his singing. He was a rich voice which seemed infinitely malleable, and he made the murderous character of Alfonso alarmingly engaging and not a little sexy.” PLANET HUGILL
“As Lucrezia’s ruthless third husband Alfonso d’Este, baritone Aidan Edwards supplies plenty of malign vigour in a role originally created by a bass; once again, this is healthy, grandly scaled singing.” THE STAGE
” Aidan Edwards’s Alfonso brought things to life every time he stepped to the fore, his tone dark and malignant, his bearing charismatic and pressing.” OPERA TODAY
“While the smooth-voiced baritone Aidan Edwards sang with a great stage presence as Alfredo’s father, Germont. Edwards played Germont as a genuinely and emotionally aware authority figure without having to show pithy sentimentality, which worked compatibly on stage as well.” TRENDFEM
“The Giorgio Germont of Aidan Edwards was a robust, solid, baritone voice of great authority.” OPERA SPY