Filipe Manu

New Zealand-Tongan tenor Filipe Manu is one of the most exciting young talents to graduate from the world-renowned Jette Parker Young Artist programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The recipient of the New Zealand performer of the year award and winner of Australia’s most prestigious singing competition, the IFAC Handa Singing Competition and the Lexus Song Quest, Manu is a member of the newly-founded ensemble at Konzert Theater Bern.

In the 2022/23 season, Manu returns to his alma mater, The Royal Opera House as Tamino in David McVicar’s vivid production of Die Zauberflöte and makes his debut at the Hamburg State Opera as Ferrando Così fan tutte conducted by Nicolas André. His roles at Konzert Theater Bern include Tamino and Ruodi Guillaume Tell. In future seasons, Manu makes his debut at Glyndebourne in a leading role and at the Opéra National de Paris.

His roles in Bern in the 2021/22 season included Arbace Idomeneo, Tebaldo I Capuletti e i Montecchi and Froh Das Rheingold. During his time with the Royal Opera House, Filipe was seen as Gastone La Traviata, Erster Gefangener Fidelio and Father/Charlie in The Seven Deadly Sins / Mahogonny Songspiel. Cancellations prevented Filipe’s role debuts in both the Turn of the Screw as Prologue/Peter Quint and Fenton in Falstaff. Concert and recital performances included the Royal Opera House Stars Gala; singing alongside Lisette Oropesa and Gerald Finley, conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, Christmas Gala Concert conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, an intimate recital of song and arias with Sir Antonio Pappano and the Jette Parker Young Artist’s Summer Performance.

Engagements on the concert platform include his debut at the Edinburgh International Festival as the tenor soloist in the opening concert of the festival: Stravinsky’s Pulcinella under the baton of Dalia Stasevska, and as Officer Ariadne auf Naxos, conducted by Lothar Koenigs. He has also appeared at the Royal Albert Hall in Handel’s Messiah and at Wigmore Hall in recital.

His formative training was gained at the University of Waikato through a Bachelors of Music and postgraduate diploma and on the Dame Malvina Major Young Artist programme with New Zealand Opera. He is a former member of the New Zealand Opera school, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Opera School and both inaugural Opera programmes for the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa foundation and the Dame Malvina Major foundation.