Oberon is one of the major parts written for countertenor. How many times have you sung the role of King of the Fairies? 

I’m rehearsing in Madrid right now – for a new production by Deborah Warner, with the premiere on 10^th March. It’s touring to Florence next year and then going on to Covent Garden sooner or later. So I’m pretty immersed in the role at the moment. In fact I’m just off to a rehearsal to give a dressing-down to the rather unseemly Puck.

So how many different productions in total?

This’ll be my eighth. I’ve sung Oberon in Houston, at the English National Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, in Aldeburgh, in Santa Fe, in Garsington, Madrid … 

What was it like singing Oberon in Aldeburgh, which is so closely associated with the life and work of Benjamin Britten?

It was an amazing experience and very special indeed. I got to see the archives in Britten’s Red House and actually held a letter written by Alfred Deller to Britten after the dress rehearsal. That dress rehearsal was held in the tiny, 50-capacity Jubilee Hall and The Times carried a review of the event. The critic had come down hard on the novel tonal colour, a countertenor in opera being almost unheard of in 1960. Deller’s confidence was shaken and he wrote that Britten could let him go if he liked - and he had nothing against a woman replacement either; whatever was best for the production.

What was Benjamin Britten’s response?

Britten said no, Deller was the idea, the voice and the sound behind this ethereal, otherworldly King of the Fairies and was naturally going to stay and sing. That was a pivotal moment for me, because if Britten had tipped the other way the story of the modern revival of the operatic countertenor might have been very different.

Why did Britten have a countertenor play such a central part in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM?

It was all down to timing and the historic factor. Baroque music was being re-discovered in the mid-20^th century: Purcell, Dowland, Händel. People were experimenting with period instruments, with strings made of gut. Authenticity was the watchword; they were trying to reimagine the original voices. In a previous chapter Deller had made his way in concert performances. Britten was fascinated by Deller’s timbre, as was composer Michael Tippett. Britten called it the sound that had been missing from the Old Music movement – a sound that was rekindling the secrets of a lost age.

Also A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM is classic Shakespeare. Britten uses that voice to evoke the Elizabethan era with its court hierarchies: you’ve got the lovers and tradesmen, tenors and basses, earthly and grounded, and then there are the fairies floating between the spheres, Titania as high soprano, Oberon as countertenor. At first hearing it’s immediately clear which world a given character belongs to. That’s brilliant, top-notch musical exposition.

Finally there’s the physical contrast: Deller was a big guy but with a bright and calm high falsetto. The blend of tenderness and authority is perfect for Oberon: he’s kind and caring but also sombre and menacing.

Ted Huffman’s Berlin production portrays the world of fairies as a drab realm of spirits as a way of reflecting Britten’s suppressed sexuality. What’s your angle on this interpretation?

I think it’s exciting and important and the right thing to do. It is 2026, after all. The English National Opera’s rendition went in a similar direction, set in a British boarding school. I played a sort of demonic principal and Puck was a pubescent schoolboy, so the production was also touching on Britten’s delicate relationship to youth and innocence. It didn’t present Britten as a paedophile, but it did explore issues of power, projection and fascination. I myself was a boarder at the age of eight, with teachers acting in loco parentis. There’s an invisible boundary – and you know at once when it’s being shifted. We should all be sensitising ourselves to these boundaries on an ongoing basis.

What’s it like singing the part of Oberon?

The role is not as taxing as people think. Compared to Händel or WRITTEN ON SKIN by George Benjamin you’re rarely touching the extremes of register. There’s the exquisite »I Know a Bank« aria but most of my text is recitative. The challenge consists in being entertaining and conveying an energised impression whenever the character appears.

And focusing on the acting element?

Absolutely. A lot of countertenors say Oberon is boring because he doesn’t do much actual singing. His stage presence is huge, yet funnily enough, in the midst of all this amazing music, he doesn’t sing a lot. And depending on the production, I can stress his benign side or his dark side. I’m like an onion: each production has deposited another layer. I now have so many Oberons stored within me that I can tap into all that experience for each new production.

You studied archaeology and anthropology. Has that informed your work as a singer?

Not really. I was a choirboy and sang all through my study years at Cambridge. But the work is very same-y. I was part of a dig in the Caribbean that excavated the remains of Britain’s first slave farm, a sugar cane plantation. And in York we uncovered a mediaeval hospital. Archaeology is about exposing strata and coming to fresh interpretations. Opera is a bit like that. You’re revealing remnants of the past and trying to give voice to them in the present day.