He made his operatic debut in 1994 as Lysander in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Opera Australia at the Edinburgh Festival. In 1996 he made his debut at the English National Opera as Tamino, returning for Jupiter in Semele. In 1997 he sang Quint in Deborah Warner's award-winning production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw for the Royal Opera, and has since returned for Caliban in Adès’s The Tempest, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni under Pappano, and Vasek in The Bartered Bride under Haitink. In 1998 he made his debut at the Munich Festival singing Nerone in David Alden's production of L'Incoronazione di Poppea, returning for Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress and the Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia. He sang Janacek's Diary of one who Vanished in a new translation by Seamus Heaney, staged by Deborah Warner in London, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam and New York. Most recently he sang Don Ottavio at the Vienna State Opera and his first Aschenbach in a new production of Death in Venice for English National Opera, also seen at the Monnaie, Brussels and in Luxembourg. He will sing Aschenbach in his debut for La Scala Milan.
His recordings include Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin with Graham Johnson (Gramophone Award 1996), Tom Rakewell with Sir John Eliot Gardiner (Grammy Award, 1999), and Belmonte with William Christie. Under his exclusive contract with EMI Classics, he has recorded Schubert Lieder and Schumann Lieder (Gramophone Award 1998), English song and Henze Lieder with Julius Drake, Britten's Our Hunting Fathers with Daniel Harding, Idomeneo with Sir Charles Mackerras, Janacek with Thomas Adès, Schubert with Leif Ove Andsnes, Mitsuko Uchida and Antonio Pappano, Noel Coward with Jeffrey Tate, Britten Orchestral cycles with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, Wolf with Pappano, Bach cantatas with Fabio Biondi, Britten’s Canticles and Britten’s The Turn of the Screw (Grammophon Award, 2003) and Handel Arias with Harry Bicket.
His concert engagements include the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras and the Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera under Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim, Daniel Harding, Donald Runnicles, James Levine and Antonio Pappano.
In 2001 he was elected an honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and in 2003 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Music by the University of St Andrew’s. He was created a CBE in the 2004 New Year’s Honours. He is married to the author and literary critic, Lucasta Miller. They live in London with their two children.
