Benjamin Hulett

Tenor Benjamin Hulett emerged from a stint at the Hamburg Staatsoper into a high-flying career in both opera and concert music in the 2010s, working in top opera houses and with A-list conductors. His recording career, centered on choral music, is substantial. Hulett's musical career began, like so many others, with a term as a choral scholar (a choral singer who performs at university functions in return for tuition support) at one of Britain's great university cathedrals, in this case, at New College, Oxford. He moved on to study opera at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and then landed a spot in the cast of the Hamburg Staatsoper from 2005 to 2009. This gave him experience in a wide variety of roles, from Tamino in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte to the Novice in Britten's Billy Budd. He also made debuts in other houses in the German- and English-speaking worlds, and by the mid-2010s, his résumé included such diverse roles as Hippolyt in Hans Werner Henze's Phaedra (at the Berliner Staatsoper) and the title role in J.C. Bach's Lucio Silla (at the Salzburg Mozartwochen). Hulett has performed at Wigmore Hall in London and at several major festivals in the U.K., including those at Aldeburgh and Buxton and at the Oxford Lieder Festival. He has been increasingly in demand as an interpreter of song. Hulett's catalog of recordings is notable for its depth, given that it is just over a decade old. After making his debut with a pair of thematic song recitals in 2009 and 2010, one (Visions Fugitives) with the ensemble 440 Hz, and the other (Departures) with duet partner Alexander Soddy, Hulett moved to Naxos for a recording of the very rarely heard settings of Edmund Spenser's sonnets by 18th century composer Maurice Greene, accompanied by a harpsichord and theorbo. He has also recorded for the Stone and Guild labels, confirming his reputation as one of the most versatile young tenors on the scene. In 2018, Hulett appeared on an Early Opera Company recording of Handel's Acis and Galatea, released on the Chandos label. He was heard in 2020 with the FestspielOrchester Göttingen on an Accent recording of Handel's oratorio Saul, HWV 53. Hulett returned on Signum Classics in 2023 with The Wimbledon Choral Society as a soloist in Cecilia McDowall's Da Vinci Requiem. ~ James Manheim, Rovi