Richard Suart was born in Lancashire, and studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, and the Royal Academy of Music. He began his operatic career with the English Music Theatre Company and Opera Factory, and is now much sought after, particularly in music theatre, contemporary opera and, of course, as a comedian in the more standard repertoire.

He has worked for all the major British opera houses, including performances of The Mikado (Ko-Ko), Die Fledermaus (Frank), La Bohème (Benoit and Alcindoro) and The Pirates of Penzance (Major-General Stanley) for English National Opera; at Opera North he created the role of Stan Stock in Benedict Mason’s Playing Away; and for Welsh National Opera and at Covent Garden he sang Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard. At Garsington he has sung Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola, and Antonio in Le Nozze di Figaro, and at Grange Park, the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe and Don Inigo Gomez in L’Heure Espagnole. He has been a member of the D’Oyly Carte since 1988 and has sung many of the Savoy operas for them, also Orpheus in the Underworld and La Vie Parisienne.

For Music Theatre Wales he created the role of King Arthur in their premiè re of Lynn Plowman and Martin Riley’s ‘adventure’ Gwyneth and the Green Knight, and for Pimlico Opera he sang in the British premiè re performances of Shostakovitch’s Cheryomushki.

Productions abroad have included Donizetti’s L’Ajo nell‘Imbarazzo in Batignano; Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King in Gelsenkirchen, Milan, Helsinki, Strasbourg, Stavanger and Paris. He sang Mason’s Chaplinoperas with the Ensemble Modern in Germany, Portugal, Holland and Austria, and gave world premiè re performances of Param Vir’s Snatched by the gods and Broken Strings for De Nederlands Oper in Amsterdam and Munich, and subsequently for Opera Transparant in Antwerp, Rotterdam and Rouen. He has sung Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon with the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, and Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre at the Salzburg Festival and the Châ telet, Paris. For the Reisopera in Holland he has sung in Peter Grimes, Reigen and The Mikado. He has made two visits to New York for performances of The Mikado with City Opera, and has given a G&S gala with the New York Philharmonic under Bramwell Tovey. He has also sung Ko-Ko in Vancouver and Penang. Recently he has given performances of Dido and Aeneas in Bremen, Turin and Barcelona with The Sixteen, and Les Noces in Brussels. Early in 2006 he created the role of Mr Walter in Michel van der Aa’s opera ‘After Life’, premiered at the Holland Festival.

He has enjoyed a long association with Diva Opera for whom he has appeared as Dr. Bartolo, Gianni Schicchi and Dulcamara; he has also directed three operettas for the company, Trial by Jury, Die Fledermaus and Cox and Box, also appearing in the productions, in the UK, the Channel Islands, Switzerland and France.

Recordings include Eight Songs for a Mad King for Finnish TV and Channel 4, Turnage’s Greek for BBCTV and Decca, Bernstein’s Candide and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; also Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. Savoy operas include The Gondoliers and Iolanthe with the D’Oyly Carte; also The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore, The Yeomen of the Guard and Trial by Jury with Welsh National Opera under Sir Charles Mackerras. Most recent recordings include The Geisha, The Maid of the Mountains and Sullivan’s The Contrabandista - all for Hyperion, and The Little Prince, a new opera by Rachel Portman, recently shown on the BBC, distributed by Sony on CD and DVD.

His involvement with the works of Gilbert and Sullivan has lead him to create an entertainment, As a Matter of Patter, which he has performed with his wife at many venues in the UK, South Africa and the Middle East . He has appeared at the BBC Proms three times, as the Duke of Plaza-Toro, The Lord Chancellor and Sir Joseph Porter. He has also made many other appearances at Gala Concerts both in the UK and North America. In 2003 he took part in the first production of The Mikado in Venice at the Palafenice. He has also given performances with Opera della Luna at London’s Bridewell Theatre of The Parson’s Pirates; also at the Buxton Festival where the production was filmed for DVD. Indeed he is a regular visitor to the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, held in Buxton each summer, and is a Vice President of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.

A Matter of Patter is an evening inspired by patter songs from opera and operetta and featuring the popular Gilbert and Sullivan characters. Please click here to learn about the entertainment.