Damien Pass

The French-Australian bass-baritone Damien Pass studied at the Yale School of Music and at Oberlin Conservatory. From 2009 to 2012 he was a member of the Atelier Lyrique training programme of the Paris Opéra. In 2011 he won first prize at the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Voice-Piano Competition; the following year he won first prize at the Prix de l’Arop in Paris. In 2011 he was also one of the HSBC Prize Winners at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Engagements in recent seasons have included Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte) at Opera Vlaanderen in Ghent and Antwerp, Erode in Stradella’s San Giovanni Battista on tour in France, the Ghost of Hector (Les Troyens) at Festival Berlioz, Doctor (Pelléas et Mélisande) and several roles in Arthur Lavandier’s La Légende du Roi Dragon for the opera companies of Lille and Bordeaux, and Oberlin in Rihm’s Jakob Lenz at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris. He also performed in Angelo Smimmo’s dance piece Viaggio barocco in Naples and Bogotá. He sang several parts in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s opera-cycle Licht at the Opéra Comique and the Philharmonie de Paris, at London’s Southbank Centre, Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and at the Philharmonie in Essen.

Other engagements include Colline (La bohème) for Scottish Opera, Selim (Il turco in Italia) for Opéra de Dijon, Pallante in Handel’s Agrippina for Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Dédale in Jonathan Dove’s Le Monstre du Labyrinthe for Aix-en-Provence Festival and Opéra de Lille, as well as Doctor (Wozzeck) for Opéra de Dijon. He has appeared as Borée in Rameau’s Les Boréades in Aix-en-Provence and at Opéra Royal in Versailles with Les Musiciens du Louvre under Marc Minkowski.

In the forthcoming season his plans include the role of Jacques Jaujard in Julien Bilodeau’s La Beauté du monde for Opéra de Montréal.