Barry Ryan

Australian baritone Barry Ryan graduated with honours from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His many awards for singing include the Shell Aria, the New York Metropolitan Auditions, the Marten Bequest for Singing, the Vienna State Opera Award and the Green Room Award. He was awarded the Order of Australia for his services to the performing arts in 2013.

Barry has performed with Europe’s leading opera companies including the Royal Opera Covent Garden (including tours to Israel and Sicily), La Scala Milan, the Opera Comique in Paris, the Paris Opera Bastille, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf, the Flemish Opera Antwerp, the Komische Oper Berlin, Basel Opera and the Otono Festival, Opera Madrid. He has also performed for Christchurch Opera, New Zealand Opera Wellington, the West Australian Opera, the Victorian State Opera, Victorian Opera and Opera Queensland. He was a principal artist with the Cologne Opera from 1988 to 1992 and in 1993 made his Australian Opera debut in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Since then Barry Ryan has performed with opera companies throughout Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

He has appeared in concert throughout Europe, Australia and Asia and has been seen in televised performances of opera in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Australia. He has performed on radio for the BBC London, the ABC in Australia, the WDR in Germany, Norwegian Radio and Radio Tokyo. He has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Norwegian Symphony Orchestra, the Shinsei Nihon Symphony Orchestra Tokyo and all the major Symphony Orchestras in Australasia.

Barry Ryan has performed under the batons of some of the world’s leading conductors, including, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Metha, Sir Charles Mackerras, Richard Bonynge, Carlo Felice Cillario and Richard Hickox. He is also a lecturer in Voice and Opera at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Barry has performed leading roles for Opera Australia, Opera Queensland, Victorian Opera, West Australian Opera and Canterbury Opera, including: George Milton in the Australian Premiere of Carlisle Floyd’s Opera Of Mice and Men, Gunther in Götterdämmerung, the title role of Nixon in Nixon in China for which he was nominated for a Helpmann Award., Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Marcello in La Bohème, Amonasro in Aida, Jochanaan in Salome, Count di Luna in Il Trovatore, Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera, the Father in Hansel and Gretel, Don Pizarro in Fidelio, Prosecuting Counsel in Lindy, Mister Redburn in Billy Budd and the Gamekeeper in Rusalka, Tonio in I Pagliacci and Alex in the world premiere of Brett Dean’s Opera Bliss for which he was also nominated for a Helpmann Award.