Robert Hayward has been long established as one of the UK’s leading dramatic bass-baritones.
He performs with all the major opera companies in the UK and Europe including Bayerische Staatsoper, Frankfurt Opera, Staatstheater Stuttgart and Nantes Opera as well as Houston Grand Opera, Opéra de Montreal, Minnesota Opera and Dallas Opera. Roles include Wotan/Wanderer Ring, Jokanaan/Salome, title roles Eugene Onegin, Mazeppa and Der fliegende Holländer as well as Scarpia/Tosca, Iago/Otello, Don Pizarro/Fidelio, Tomsky/Pique Dame, Nick Shadow/The Rake’s Progress, Kurwenal/Tristan, Bluebeard/Bluebeard’s Castle, Prince Ivan/Khovansky Khovanshchina, Telramund/Lohengrin, Simone in Zemlinsky’s Florentine Tragedy.
Recent and future engagements include Khovansky (WNO); Bluebeard (LA Opera); Salome (NI Opera); Moses und Aron (Komische Oper); Boris / Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Chief of Police in Iain Bell’s Jack the Ripper, Jupiter/Orpheus in the Underworld, Commander/The Handmaid’s Tale (ENO); Alberich/Das Rheingold and Siegfried (LPO), title role Falstaff (Grange Festival) and Tomsky/Pique Dame (Garsington).
He works regularly for Opera North where roles have included Golaud/Pelléas and Mélisande, Ford/Falstaff, Mandryka/Arabella, Shishkov/From the House of the Dead, Prus/The Makropulos Case, Balstrode/Peter Grimes, Jack Rance/The Girl of the Golden West, Gérard/Andrea Chénier, Scarpia, Jokanaan, Der fliegende Holländer, Frank Maurrant Street Scene, Don Pizarro, Amfortas Parsifal and title roles Don Giovanni, Saul, Falstaff, Macbeth.
Last updated: 1st April 2026