Biography
Hailed for his “polished vocal technique” and “heart-tugging emotional communication” (San Diego Story), Nicholas Newton garners due attention as an up-and-coming bass-baritone in the classical music world. Nicholas' 2024-25 season features a debut at the Opéra national de Paris in Rameau’s Castor et Pollux in a new production directed by Peter Sellars under the baton of Teodor Currentzis, Le nozze di Figaro at Lyric Opera of Chicago directed by Barbara Gaines led by Erina Yashima, and a new production of Don Giovanni at Opera Philadelphia directed by Alison Moritz and conducted by Music Director Corrado Rovaris. Concert performances include a debut with Boston Baroque joining Music Director Martin Pearlman for Haydn’s The Creation and Handel’s Messiah with the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Patrick Summers.
Highlights from the previous season included the Houston Grand Opera world premiere of Intelligence, a new American epic created by a powerhouse trio: composer Jake Heggie, librettist Gene Scheer, and director/choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, founder of Urban Bush Women, Rossini’s comic masterpiece La cenerentola at Lyric Opera of Chicago, John Adams’ El Niño at the Metropolitan Opera in a new production directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz led by Marin Alsop, and the world premiere of Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith's The Righteous along with the role of Leporello in a fresh interpretation of Don Giovanni by Stephen Barlow at the Santa Fe Opera under the baton of Music Director Harry Bicket. Concert performances included Handel’s Messiah with the Ann Arbor Symphony and the Rhode Island Philharmonic as well as a three-city tour of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones in a new suite of music from the composer’s historic opera, performed with the celebrated trumpeter, his E-Collective, and the Grammy Award-winning Turtle Island Quartet.
Highlights of past seasons include a European debut at the Salzburg Festival in Purcell’s The Indian Queen with Teodor Currentzis conducting Utopia choir and orchestra, the role of Peter in Richard Jones’ acclaimed production of Hänsel und Gretel at Lyric Opera of Chicago conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, Il barbiere di Siviglia at Cincinnati Opera and Santa Fe Opera, Handel’s Rodelinda at the Metropolitan Opera and Xerxes at Detroit Opera, Rigoletto at The Dallas Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and both La bohème and Sweeney Todd at Wolf Trap Opera. At Houston Grand Opera, which the artist considers his ‘home company,’ he has bowed in the world premieres of Joel Thompson and Andrea Davis Pinkney’s The Snowy Day and Damien Sneed and Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton’s Marian Song and worked on many other productions such as Barie Kosky’s acclaimed production of Handel’s Saul, Romeo et Juliette, Rigoletto, Salome, and Tosca.
"Bass-baritone Nicholas Newton’s rich, hearty voice and sympathetic manner lent Billy a dignity of his own."
Texas Classical Review | Marian's Song
An avid concert performer and recitalist, Nicholas Newton is an alumnus of Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute and has toured with renowned pianist, Kevin Murphy, performing at the Tucson Desert Song Festival. He also has worked with the Cincinnati Song Initiative and performed in their virtual recital series: A World of Song, and appeared in Houston Grand Opera’s Giving Voice: Lawrence Brownlee & Friends concert. Other notable concert performances include Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass, Fauré’s Requiem, Stephen Paulus' To Be Certain of the Dawn, Gershwin’s Catfish Row with San Diego Winds, Duruflé’s Requiem with San Diego Master Chorale, and the world premiere of Michael Capp’s Christmas Revels with Las Colinas Symphony.
In addition to his burgeoning profile on international opera and concert stages, Nicholas Newton is an independent researcher whose main focus is Black composers and their operatic and vocal concert repertoire. Most recently, he worked as the lead researcher and advisor for a museum exhibition entitled COMPOSED: Honoring Black Composers in Opera & Jazz at the Metropolitan Museum of Design Detroit. He is also building a Black Opera Database; an in-progress resource created to archive, celebrate, and preserve the vocal compositional output of Black composers and works that chronicle the Black experience. He conducts most of his in-person research in New York at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and in Chicago at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago: these two centers have provided him the opportunity to research the music of Black composers in great detail through the access of Special Collections, Microfilms, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books. Nicholas Newton is an affiliate with the Black Opera Research Network where he works alongside the David G. Frey Distinguished Professor in Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Naomi André. Dr. André is today’s foremost scholar of Black opera, specializing in research on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Nicholas Newton has delivered multiple lectures on Black opera composers while under the tutelage of composer, former Fulbright Scholar and Guggenheim Fellow, and 2023 American Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Prize in Music winner, Dr. Shih Hui Chen.
A proud alum of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Nicholas Newton also trained as a Studio Artist and Filene Artist with Wolf Trap Opera, a Young Artist with Aspen Music Festival, in the Young Artists Vocal Academy of Houston Grand Opera, and in San Diego Opera’s Opera Exposed program. A 2021 Sullivan Award-winner, he earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from San Diego State University studying with Laurinda Nikkel and his Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from Rice University under the tutelage of Dr. Stephen King.