James Rutherford

Since winning the Seattle Opera's International Wagner Competition in 2006, British baritone James Rutherford, who studied theology and then singing at the Royal College of Music in London, has become known for his interpretations of German Romantic opera.His repertoire includes roles such as Scarpia (Puccini's "Tosca"), Jago (Verdi's "Otello"), Germont (Verdi's "La traviata"), Rocco (Beethoven's "Fidelio"), Lawrence (Smyth's "The Wreckers"), the Wagner roles of the Dutchman ("The Flying Dutchman"), Wolfram ("Tannhäuser"), Telramund ("Lohengrin"), Hans Sachs ("Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg"), Kurwenal ("Tristan und Isolde"), Amfortas ("Parsifal"), Wotan/Wanderer ("Der Ring des Nibelungen"), as well as the R. Strauss roles Jochanaan ("Salome"), Mandryka ("Arabella"), Barak ("Die Frau ohne Schatten"), Faninal ("Der Rosenkavalier"), and Orest ("Elektra"). Guest engagements have taken him to the world's most important opera houses, including the state opera houses in Vienna, Paris, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Berlin, the opera houses in Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Graz, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Washington National Opera, and the San Francisco Opera, among others, as well as the Bayreuth Festival and the Glyndebourne Festival.He also performs regularly in concert halls internationally with leading orchestras and conductors. James Rutherford has already appeared at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein as Wotan and Wanderer in Wagner's “Ring” cycle and as Scarpia. In concert performances of the cycle, his interpretation of the two Wotans and the Wanderer was recorded for a CD production with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Axel Kober.He returned here in the 2023/24 season as Holländer and Faninal ("Der Rosenkavalier") and will return to the Rhine in the 2025/26 season as Wotan in "Die Walküre".