Bass-baritone Douglas Williams trained at the New England Conservatory and the Yale School of Music. Raised in Farmington, Connecticut, he now lives in Berlin.
He has collaborated with leading conductors including Simon Rattle, Nicholas McGegan, Helmuth Rilling, Neville Marriner, John Nelson and Christophe Rousset, appearing in such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Mozart Saal in Stuttgart and the Alte Oper in Frankfurt.
Recent operatic highlights include his debut as Figaro with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in a new production by Robin Guarino. He appears regularly with Opera Atelier, including as Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) and Antinoo (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria).
Douglas Williams also appeared as Caronte (L’Orfeo) with Sasha Waltz & Guests and conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and as Polyphemus in the world premiere of the Mark Morris Dance Group’s production of Acis and Galatea, which he also recorded in 2015 with the Boston Early Music Festival.
Other recent highlights include the US premiere of Scarlatti’s La gloria di primavera at Carnegie Hall, as well as in Orange County and the Bay Area in California, with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Nicholas McGegan, Baroque concert programmes with Les Talens Lyriques in Paris, Versailles and Oslo, Charles Wuorinen’s It Happens Like This with the MET Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall and Handel’s Messiah with the Nashville, Detroit, Houston and National Symphony orchestras. Most recently he has toured Europe as Nick Shadow in concert performances of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress under the baton of Barbara Hannigan.
Douglas Williams appears on the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s recording of Scarlatti’s La gloria di primavera, which was released on the Orchestra’s own label in April 2016. His recording of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers with the Boston Early Music Festival won the 2015 Grammy Award for best opera recording.
