FILIPE MANU

New Zealand-Tongan tenor Filipe Manu made his Royal Opera debut in the 2018/19 Season as Hippolyt (Hippolytus) in Phaedra in the Linbury Theatre. In the 2019/20 Season he joins the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme and sings Gastone de Letorières (La traviata), First Prisoner (Fidelio) and Sailor (Tristan und Isolde) for The Royal Opera.

Manu has a Bachelor of Music degree and a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction from the University of Waikato, where he studied with Dame Malvina Major. He has been a Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist with New Zealand Opera, and been selected for the inaugural Dame Malvina Major Opera programme and the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation Singers’ Development programme. He also completed a Masters Degree on the Opera Programme at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he sang Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Ferrando. He was the GSMD 2018/19 Independent Opera Voice Scholar and a Samling Artist. His opera appearances include Arturo (Lucia di Lammermoor) and Pilade (Oreste) for Auckland Opera Studio, Ferrando (Così fan tutte) for Bloomsbury Opera and Tebaldo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) and Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola) for West Green House Opera.

Manu’s notable concert appearances include Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai with the Southbank Sinfonia, Messiah with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Nicholas McGegan, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the London Schools Symphony Orchestra and singing in a small ensemble in La Damnation de Faust with the London Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle. Competition successes including winning the IFAC Handa-Australian Singing Competition (also Audience Prize). He was runner-up in the New Zealand Lexus Song Quest and New Zealand Aria competitions and second runner-up in the Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award (also Mozart Prize).