Born in London, James McOran-Campbell trained as a singer in Milan, at the GSMD and the National Opera Studio before making his UK debut for Opera North, where he has sung title role Don Giovanni, Count Le Nozze di Figaro and roles in Orfeo and The Merry Widow.
His repertoire now encompasses more than fifty roles, from specialist early opera to contemporary commissions. Highlights include title role Onegin and Hajny/Lovec in Rusalka for Grange Park Opera, Alasdair in the Sky Arts Award-winning production of Ghost Patrol for Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales, Don Alfonso Così fan Tutte for Scottish Opera, Dandini Cenerentola for Welsh National Opera, roles in the première of How the Whale Became by Julian Philips for the Royal Opera and the world première of Ground Beneath her Feet with the Hallé Orchestra under Mark Elder. He earned critical acclaim for his performances in the title role in Il Barbiere di Siviglia for Grange Park Opera, Zomeropera (Belgium) and Opéra de Baugé and also appeared in The Sound of Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, where he performed Weil’s Street Scene, also at the Young Vic, Vienna, the Liceu in Barcelona and for Radio 3 Broadcast. He also sang Belcore in The Elixir of Love for Northern Ireland Opera, Opera Theatre Company and Nevill Holt Opera. Having appeared for Buxton Festival in Dvorjak’s The Jacobin he was invited back in recital to perform Winterreise with pianist James Southall and recently performed Dichterliebe and Songs of Travel with Laetitia Federici in London. Concert performances have included the Royal Albert Hall, King’s Place, Cadogan Hall, Crush Room Covent Garden, and for Raymond Gubbay at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and the De Montfort Hall in Leicester. Other recent departures to his established career include appearing in Mission Impossible 5, and in staged-play adaptations of A Christmas Carol and T.S Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. He has co-directed Opera Vera’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Così fan Tutte with Alexander Anderson-Hall and directed a scaled-down version of Onegin for Artstrust Productions.
