A tenor born in Ashburton, New Zealand in 1971, Simon O'Neill is renowned for his stature in operatic roles by Wagner and Verdi. A music student at the Universities of Otago and Wellington, he went on to study at the Manhattan School in New York, where he received his master's degree in 2000, and embarked on an international operatic career. Joining the Juilliard Opera Center, he made his debut in Mozart’s Idoménée and Poulenc’s Le Dialogue des Carmélites, before appearing at the San Francisco Opera in Puccini’s La Bohème. He also performed at New York's Metropolitan Opera in Wagner’s La Walkyrie, replacing Plácido Domingo. From then on, Simon O'Neill proved an asset to opera productions looking for a solid tenor to embody Wagner's characters, with Christian Thielemann in Parsifal at the Vienna Opera, Antonio Pappano in La Walkyrie at London's Covent Garden and La Scala in Milan, Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin Opera, Franz Welser-Möst at the Vienna Staatsoper and Kent Nagano at the Munich Opera. He performed with Donald Runnicles in a return engagement at New York's Metropolitan. In 2010, the tenor made his Bayreuth Festival debut in Lohengrin, conducted by Andris Nelsons, and returned the following year for Parsifal. He also tackled the title role in Verdi's Otello with Colin Davis in 2009, and opened his repertoire to Mahler's Symphony No. 8, which he recorded with Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valery Gergiev, and Gustavo Dudamel, as well as Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, with Kent Nagano and Paavo Järvi. His appearance in fellow New Zealander Kiri Te Kanawa’s Kiri and Friends was followed by Chausson: Le roi Arthus with Leon Bolstein (2005), Weber: Der Freischütz with Colin Davis (2013) and Janáček: Katya Kabanova with Simon Rattle (2024). Simon O'Neill has also recorded the recitals Father and Son - Wagner Scenes and Arias (2010) and Distant Beloved with pianist Terence Dennis (2019) and participated in Wagnermania (2021). In 2017, he was appointed Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
