John Treleaven was born in Cornwall, studied at London College of Music, London Opera Centre Covent Garden, and in Naples (Italy). He performed in all major UK opera halls, making début at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and moving to the Edinburgh Festival, Welsh National Opera and English National Opera, where his roles included Don José, Cavaradossi, Hoffmann, Pinkerton, Don Carlos, Prince (in Rusalka) and Oedipus Rex by Igor Stravinsky. Guest performances in Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, France, and the US followed.
The turning point in his international career came with the new production of Tristan and Isolde (2001) at De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam (conducted by Simon Rattle, with Gabriele Schnaut as Isolde). Treleaven is among the most popular dramatic tenors of our times. As Florestan, Max, Stolzing, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Siegmund and Siegfried in Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods, Tristan and Kaiser he has put his foot on the highest-ranking international opera stages.
The projects that the artist is currently involved in include Twilight of the Gods in London, Stolzing in Toulouse, Lohengrin in Barcelona, Idomeneo in Tokyo, Tiefland in Frankfurt, Tannhäuser in Hamburg, and Tristan in Torino, Hamburg, and Santiago de Chile.
The artist’s plans for the future include also a new production of Tristan in Los Angeles, where he shall also be singing in Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods in the years 2009 and 2010.
Treleaven’s first solo recording (Arte Nova Voices), successful with the critics inasmuch as with the public, is a proof of the artist’s special love of Wagnerian roles. The disc includes fragments of the Ring cycle conducted by Ivan Anguélov. John Treleaven’s latest record A Wagner Portrait has just been released by Oehms Classics.