Read on to discover the 7 best baritone roles in all of opera...
Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute
Papageno often gets the loud cheer at the end of Mozart's The Magic Flute because, although the other singers have worked their nuts off to sing beautifully, he comes across as the most human and is the one who actually interacts with the audience. And sometimes, they interact back! I was playing the role once in Newcastle and had just said to Pamina, ‘I don’t even have a girlfriend. I’ve got nobody’, when a mobile phone went off. I said, ‘Oh! Unless that’s her now!’ It was a brilliant moment; you can’t do that in Puccini or Wagner.
Marcello in Puccini’s La bohème
Although Marcello doesn’t get the big arias in La bohème, he’s in the thick of the action and at the centre of most of the ensembles, so it’s a very collegiate, sociable role. He’s often the spur for a lot of the comic business. And here’s the clincher: he gets to eat! In the second act, he stops singing and says, ‘Pass me the ragu’. Then he turns his back on Musetta and gets stuck in for a good five minutes or so, which is great because by this point in the opera I’m normally starving. And at the Royal Opera House, they might even heat the food up!
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Mozart’s Don Giovanni
I can think of no higher status character in opera than Don Giovanni. He outranks most people on the stage, which is why he gets away with so much, and he is totally fearless – even when he is being dragged down to hell by his nemesis, the Commendatore. As a card-carrying Brit who spends all his time minding his P’s and Q’s, I find it really refreshing to play someone so completely fearless and amoral. Plus, Giovanni is a complete magnet: everybody on stage finds him irresistible. I think we should all get to feel that way once in our lives.
Britten’s Billy Budd
Although Britten's Billy Budd is basically a good character, if I only played his goodness, he’d become an angelic figure with no depth. Like any human, Billy has a darker side; he’s a man with a temper who, under certain circumstances, has the capacity to kill someone. Exploring those aspects is fascinating. For me, Billy Budd also feels like a natural fit. His life is obviously very different from mine – I have a lovely, supportive, settled life, while he’s been press-ganged onto a man-of-war – but his basic optimism and tendency to see the good in people is something I share.
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Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin
For me, playing Tchaikovsky's Onegin as irredeemably haughty is not interesting. I like the challenge of exploring whyhe’s cold and discovering his warmth. In the scene where he lets Tatiana down, I try to convey his humanity. If a neighbour’s teenage daughter confessed her love after one meeting, I think that quietly returning her letter and saying, ‘You’re lovely, and I respect you, but this isn’t a good idea’, would be one of the better responses. That’s exactly what Onegin does – and then people call him cold. I’d like to know what on earth they expect him to do instead.
Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca
With characters like Don Giovanni and Onegin, I’ve sought to soften their villainous edges. But with Scarpia in Tosca, whose talent is to instantly spot a person’s weakness and ruthlessly exploit it, that’s nearly impossible. As a character study, I find him fascinating. Every time someone has said, ‘Roddy, you’re far too nice to play Scarpia’, it has motivated me to go deeper and to embrace that Jungian space. I also believe it’s valuable to explore these characters to realise that you don’t have to be a bad person to do a bad thing – but that a bad man will do it knowingly.
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Eddy in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek
I played Eddy, the central character in this contemporary retelling of the Oedipus myth, in concert years ago, and it really stuck in my mind. It’s a gratifying role to sing because Mark pushes the singer in terms of range. And it’s gratifying to act because this is the story of Oedipus – and of course there is plenty of drama. The language is absolutely filthy; it’s satisfying to sing out loud and proud the best curse words in the English language. Plus, I loved putting on Eddy’s cockney accent – it was like the passport to a new personality.
Who is Roderick Williams?
Roderick Williams is one of Britain’s leading baritones and a noted composer. A chorister in his youth, he studied at Oxford University before pursuing vocal studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Williams has since won acclaim for his versatility across opera, concert and recital stages, with a repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary works. He was appointed an OBE in 2017 and was a soloist and composer for the King’s Coronation in 2023. He is the new artist-in-residence with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the 2025-26 season.
