About
English tenor Neal Cooper made his Royal Opera debut in 2013 as Thibault (Les Vêpres siciliennes) and has since returned to sing Melot (Tristan und Isolde) and one act as Tannhäuser. He has also performed with Antonio Pappano Royal Opera Insights programmes. In the 2017/18 Season he returns to sing Thibault.
Cooper was born in South London and studied German literature at Durham University and singing at the Paris Conservatoire. After several years working in France he returned to Britain to train at the National Opera Studio as a dramatic tenor. His engagements since have included Tristan (Tristan und Isolde) for Pfalztheater-Kaiserslautern, Tristan and Tannhäuser for Longborough Festival Opera, Tannhäuser for Saarländisches Staatstheater, Saarbrücken, Melot for the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Ulrich Eisslinger (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) for La Scala, Milan, Calaf (Turandot) for Northern Ireland Opera, Gabriele Adorno (Simon Boccanegra) for English National Opera, Radames (Aida) for Riverside Opera, Mark (The Wreckers) for Bard SummerScape and Ciccillo (I gioielli della Madonna) and Gherardo (Gianni Schicchi) for Opera Holland Park.
Concert appearances include the title role in extracts from Siegfried in the Wagner 200 Celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall, and the title role in the Good Friday scene of Parsifal, with John Tomlinson as Gurnemanz. Cooper is the nephew of the boxing heavyweight champion Sir Henry Cooper.