The South African baritone Jacques Imbrailo won the audience prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in 2007 and has since established himself as one of the most sought-after singers of his generation. He performs worldwide at major opera houses and concert halls under leading conductors.
In the 2024/25 season Jacques Imbrailo made his role debut as Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Opéra national de Nancy-Lorraine, sang Ned Keene (Peter Grimes) under Michele Mariotti at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome and returned to the Bavarian State Opera as Tadeusz in Tobias Kratzer’s production of Weinberg’s The Passenger. His performances as Andrey in Eötvös’s Three Sisters mark his Salzburg Festival debut.
His engagements in the two previous seasons included the title role in a new production of Don Giovanni at Malmö Opera, Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Hamburg State Opera, his role debuts as Yeletsky (The Queen of Spades) at La Monnaie in Brussels and as Chou En-lai (Nixon in China) at the Teatro Real in Madrid and his house debuts at the Ópera de Oviedo as Don Giovanni, at the Paris Opéra as Ned Keene and at the Bavarian State Opera as Horatio in Brett Dean’s Hamlet — a role in which he had previously made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Jacques Imbrailo’s recent concert appearances have included Fauré’s Requiem with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Jesus in Frank Martin’s Golgotha with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the title role of Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise in a concert performance under Kent Nagano at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.
Other highlights in his opera career have included the title role in Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet for the Washington Concert Opera, Valentin (Faust) in Baden-Baden, Alphonse XI (La Favorite) and Tarquinius (The Rape of Lucretia) at the Houston Grand Opera, Vincenzo Gellner (La Wally) at the Theater an der Wien, Ned Keene at the Teatro Real, Don Giovanni and Horatio in the world premiere of Dean’s Hamlet at the Glyndebourne Festival, Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas) at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and the Opéra de Lille, Joachim Messner in the world premiere of Jimmy López’s Bel Canto at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Don Giovanni under Teodor Currentzis at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre.
