Biography

Baritone Christopher Maltman was propelled to international prominence when he won the Lieder Prize at the 1997 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He is equally active as an opera singer, a song recitalist, and a performer in orchestral concerts. Maltman was born in Cleethorpes in England's North East Lincolnshire region on February 6, 1970. He attended Warwick Univerity, where he graduated with a biochemistry degree, but in 1991, he switched to music and entered the Royal Academy of Music in London. His principal teacher there was Mark Wildman. Maltman also took lessons from the septuagenarian Italian baritone Sesto Bruscantini and studied briefly with Thomas Hampson at the Brereton International Music Symposium. Maltman scored a major breakthrough in 1997 when he won the Lieder Prize at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. The following year, he was cast as Raimbaud in a production of Rossini's opera Le comte Ory by the Glyndebourne Touring Opera Company, and he held the title role in Britten's Billy Budd at the Welsh National Opera. The year 1998 also saw Maltman make his album debut as a primary artist in a Collins Records release devoted to vocal music by Gustav Holst. Maltman's career accelerated rapidly in the new century. He is a versatile singer whose repertory extends from Mozart and bel canto opera through Verdi's entire career and into English 20th century opera. Maltman is particularly identified with the Royal Opera in London, where he has appeared in some 15 roles, and with the English National Opera, where he became a member of the cast. He has also sung at many other houses in continental Europe and North America, as well as in Britain. Maltman is in demand as a lieder singer both in performance and on recordings; he appeared in the complete cycles of both Schumann's and Schubert's songs released by the Hyperion label and on Deutsche Grammophon's complete recordings of Beethoven's folk song settings. He has appeared with major orchestras, including the London Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, in works such as Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 ("Choral"), Britten's War Requiem, and Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music. Maltman has appeared on numerous opera recordings and on more than 20 albums as a featured artist on such labels as Hyperion, Wigmore Hall Live, and Signum Classics. In 2023, he moved to the Erato label for a recording of Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg under conductor John Nelson. ~ James Manheim, Rovi