Geoffrey Sirett
Hailed by the Globe and Mail as “a brilliant performer,” “with the kind of magnetism that comes from combining realism with exhaustive extremes,” baritone Geoffrey Sirett won the 2018 Dora Award for Outstanding Opera Performance singing the leading role of Akaky in The Overcoat (Canadian Stage co-production with Tapestry Opera and Vancouver Opera). Sirett has emerged as one of Canada’s finest young baritones, in demand across the country for his wide range of operatic and concert repertoire.
Geoffrey’s recent and upcoming engagements include Carmina Burana with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Orchestre Philharmonique et Choeur des Mélomanes at Maison Symphonique de Montréal, Brahms’ Requiem with the Victoria Symphony, Elijah with Edmonton’s Richard Eaton Singers, and Handel’s Brockes Passion with Metropolitan United (Toronto), and the Duruflé Requiem with the Ottawa Choral Society. 2019-20 highlights included Brahms’ Requiem for the Richard Eaton Singers and Messiah for the Ottawa Choral Society. In 2018-19, Sirett made his Canadian Opera Company debut as Welko in Arabella, sang Captain Corcoran in Edmonton Opera’s H.M.S. Pinafore as well as his aforementioned award-winning performances in The Overcoat. Summer 2018 saw him appear with Music & Beyond in Dido and Aeneas and as Escamillo in Carmen with Kelowna Opera. On the concert stage in 2017-18, he joined the Toronto Symphony for Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins and sang Messiah with the Peterborough Singers and St. John Passion with the Ottawa Choral Society and the Elora Singers.
Other highlights for Sirett include of the hit production The Bells of Baddeck in Nova Scotia as well as Orest in Elektra and Ping in Turandot for Edmonton Opera, Elijah for the Pax Christi Chorale, Messiah for the Newfoundland Symphony and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis for the Grand Philharmonic Choir. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Orchestre symphonique de Drummondville), Bach’s B-Minor Mass (Sweetwater Festival), Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death (Off Centre Music Salon), The Merry Widow (Edmonton Opera), Damnation of Faust (Calgary Philharmonic), Prince Igor (VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert), Bach’s Mass in B Minor (Ottawa Bach Choir), and a Candlelight Christmas Concert (13 Strings Chamber Orchestra) have featured prominently in his recent seasons.
Further credits include John Adam’s The Wound Dresser (Victoria Symphony), Brahms’ Requiem (Ottawa Bach Choir), Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Theatre of Early Music), Handel’s Messiah (Winnipeg Symphony) as well as performances with the Talisker Players, Canadian Art Song Project, Orchestra London, Winnipeg Symphony, Victoria Symphony, and Nota Bene Baroque Orchestra. Appearances on the opera stage included Opéra de Montréal’s production of Kevin Puts’ Silent Night, Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna with Opera5, and the world-premiere of MacDonald/Burry’s The Bells of Baddeck.
The premiere of James Rolfe’s Open Road, Brian Current’s Airline Icarus, Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, Dean Burry’s The Brothers Grimm, Bach’s Johannes Passion, Mozart’s Krönungsmesse, Stankar in Verdi’s Stifellio, Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium, and Messiah are works he has performed for Soundstreams, Against the Grain, Canadian Opera Company, Ottawa Choral Society and Choeur St. Laurent. Sirett’s has sung roles in Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte, Hansel and Gretel, Orlando, Candide, Il mondo della luna, Pagliacci, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Gianni Schicchi, Albert Herring, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, West Side Story, and The Great Gatsby.
Geoffrey is a graduate of the University of Toronto where he completed a Master’s in Music (Opera). He is the winner of awards and prizes from a number of competitions including the Canadian Conservatory Vocal Competition, Ottawa Choral Society Competition, Czech and Slovak International Voice Competition, Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and he received 2nd place and the “Best Performance of a Canadian Work” Award in the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Competition. He is a five-time grant recipient of the Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation, and winner of the Vancouver Opera Guild Career Development Grant.
Winner of the Norcop Song Prize, his recital appearances include performances for the Aldeburgh Connection and Bayfield Festival of Song with pianist Stephen Ralls, Van Cliburn Foundation with composer/pianist Ricky Ian Gordon, and the Chautauqua Institution with pianists Craig Rutenberg and Mikael Eliasen. Collaborating with pianist Stephen Ralls, his first solo album Vagabond is a disc devoted to the works of Vaughan Williams, Butterworth, and Britten as well as premiere recordings of Canadian composers Ivan Barbotin and Jocelyn Morlock. Additional recordings include Airline Icarus, an opera by Brian Current, The Heart’s Refuge (Analekta: Theatre of Early Music) and The Vale of Tears (Analekta: Theatre of Early Music).
Geoffrey is the Artistic Director of Kingston’s Cantabile Choirs. Co-producer and music director for the indie opera company Bicycle Opera Project, Geoffrey continues his advocacy for contemporary Canadian music, spending his summers performing all-Canadian operas across Ontario, travelling exclusively by bicycle.
August 2024
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““Geoffrey Sirett is extraordinary as Akakiy. Sirett has always been a brilliant performer … with the kind of magnetism that comes from combining realism with exhaustive extremes. As Akakiy, Sirett is immediately endearing, blissfully ignorant of the bullies at work and entirely uninterested in things such first impressions or a healthy diet.””
