Bass-baritone Laurence Meikle has gained international recognition in the world of opera and concert performance. Laurence began his career at the age of 22 at the Sydney Opera House with Opera Australia, performing roles such as Masetto in Don Giovanni, Angelotti in Tosca, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, and Colline in La Bohème. He continued his artistic career across major Australian theatres before pursuing advanced studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he was awarded the Opera Rara Bel Canto Prize.
While in the UK, performing with Opera Holland Park, Grange Park Opera, and at the London Handel Festival, he signed a contract with the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar. During that time, his repertoire expanded to 27 new roles, including the title role in Don Giovanni, Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, Elmiro in Rossini’s Otello, Astolfo in Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso, Colline in La Bohème (which he performed over 90 times), Escamillo in Carmen, Hercules in Cavalli’s Il Giasone, Hobson in Peter Grimes, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, and the title role in Handel’s Saul. During this period, he also performed with the opera companies of Theatre Erfurt, Theatre Nordhausen, Landestheater Altenburg, and Bühnen der Stadt Gera.
As a concert singer, Laurence regularly performs the core bass-baritone repertoire, including Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, the Great Mass in C minor, and the Coronation Mass, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Duruflé’s and Fauré’s Requiems, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Petite Messe Solennelle, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, and other works by Vivaldi, Schubert, Mozart, and especially Bach. Other concert highlights include Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Rückert Lieder, Delius’ Seadrift, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, and Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, performed at venues such as Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, and Cadogan Hall in London, the Sydney Opera House, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, with orchestras including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, London Handel Players, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Staatskapelle Weimar, English Chamber Orchestra, and English Concert Orchestra.
In recent years, he has collaborated with conductors such as Sir Charles Mackerras, Fabio Luisi, Richard Bonynge, Bruno Campanella, Diego Fasolis, Stefano Ranzani, Dame Jane Glover, Renato Palumbo, Stefano Montanari, Donato Renzetti, and Richard Hickox. As a chamber musician, he has focused on the works of Schumann, Schubert, and Mahler, as well as contemporary music, collaborating with pianists such as Aura Go, Malcolm Martineau, Christopher Glynn, and Piers Lane.
Laurence’s career in Italy began in 2017, when he performed Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with Fabio Luisi at the Festival Valle d’Itria. He made his debut at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples as Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, followed by Zuniga in Carmen at the Teatro delle Muse Ancona. Fabio Luisi invited him back to the Valle d’Itria Festival in 2018 for the title role in Meyerbeer’s Margherita d’Anjou, and to perform in a series of Vivaldi concerts with Diego Fasolis and I Barocchisti, while covering the role of Astolfo in Orlando Furioso.
Between 2018 and 2019, Laurence returned to Teatro San Carlo in several roles, including Colline in La Bohème, Pharaoh in Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto, Porter in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Grenville in La Traviata, alongside Leo Nucci. At the opening of the 2019–2020 season, Laurence performed the title role in Don Giovanni at Teatro Sociale di Rovigo, and later reprised Colline in La Bohème and sang Sam in Un Ballo in Maschera with Donato Renzetti, both at Teatro di San Carlo. He was also soloist in Mozart’s Requiem at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa.
During the pandemic, Laurence released a recording with Concerto Classics: The Complete Psalms of Benedetto Marcello with the Ensemble Salomone Rossi, participated in a La Rondine concert at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and continued chamber performances, including Schubert’s Schwanengesang and Schumann’s Dichterliebe.
In Portugal, he has performed as a soloist with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, at the Marvão Festival, in recitals for Antena 2, at the Museu do Oriente Foundation, the Artis XXI Festival, and will return to the Marvão Festival this summer.
Laurence’s principal teachers were Ryland Davies and Tom Krause, and he has worked extensively with notable singers including Sir John Tomlinson, Ruggiero Raimondi, José Carreras, Sir Thomas Allen, and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Since 2019, he has been a student of Maestro Fernando Cordeiro Opa.
