About this Artist
French-Canadian bass-baritone PHILIPPE SLY (Guglielmo) is already gaining international notoriety for his “beautiful, blooming tone and magnetic stage presence” (San Francisco Chronicle). Sly is the first-prize winner of the prestigious 2012 Concours Musical International de Montréal and a grand prize winner of the 2011 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions singing the varied repertoire of Mozart, Bach, Handel, Stravinsky, and Wagner. Recently, he was awarded Concert of the Year in Romantic, Post-Romantic, and Impressionist Music at the 16th annual ceremony of the Prix Opus in Québec.
Philippe Sly continues as an Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera in the 2013/14 season. He will make his debut at Opéra de Lyon in Laurent Pelly’s production of Le comte Ory as Raimbaud and will be seen as Bartolo in San Francisco Opera’s Barber for Families. He also opens the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s season as Méphistophélès in concert performances of Berlioz’ La damnation de Faust under Kent Nagano and makes his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte under Gustavo Dudamel in a production by Christopher Alden. In concert, Sly makes his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in Fauré’s Requiem and with Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal in Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, both under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Future seasons will see him at San Francisco Opera, Glyndebourne Festival, Canadian Opera Company, Edmonton Opera, and Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano, among others.
In the 2012/13 season, Sly became a member of the prestigious Adler Fellowship Program at the San Francisco Opera, where he made his mainstage debut as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte under music director Nicola Luisotti to great critical acclaim. On the concert stage, he sang Mozart’s Requiem with Pro Coro Canada in Edmonton, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Ottawa Bach Choir, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Ottawa Choral Society, among others. In recital, he toured Canada in recital with the Debut Atlantic Series and was heard at the Toronto Summer Music Festival with pianist Julius Drake. Sly was a Révélation Radio-Canada artist for the 2012/13 season.
After winning the MET National Council Auditions, Sly became a member of the ensemble at the Canadian Opera Company in the 2011/12 season, where he was seen as Hermann in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Amantio di Nicolai in a new production of Gianni Schicchi directed by Catherine Malfitano and conducted by Andrew Davis, as well as A Scythian Man in Iphigénie en Tauride alongside the Iphigénie of Susan Graham. As a recitalist, Philippe Sly performed with the Canadian Chamber Players in Ottawa and performed in recital in Montreal, Paris, London, and The Hague.
Sly holds a Bachelor of Music degree in voice performance from McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in Montreal. He is also an alumnus of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, where he performed the role of Dr. Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia. His roles at McGill University include Marcello in La bohème and Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress. As a recording artist with Analekta Records, his first solo album, In Dreams, was released in October 2012 to great critical acclaim, followed by an all-Rameau album entitled Les amants trahis with Hélène Guilmette and Luc Beauséjour.