New Zealand-Tongan tenor Filipe Manu in his final year on the Jette Parker Young Artist programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Filipe began his training with a Bachelors of Music and a postgraduate diploma from the University of Waikato and on the Dame Malvina Major Young Artist programme with New Zealand Opera. He is a former member of the New Zealand Opera school and the inaugural Opera programmes for the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa foundation and the Dame Malvina Major foundation. He was awarded the ‘New Zealand Young Performer of the Year’ award and won Australasia’s most prestigious singing competition the IFAC Handa Australian Singing Competition.
In 2017, Filipe joined the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London as a member of the Opera Course studying his Masters of Music. Whilst in his final semester of study, Filipe made his company debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and joined the Young Artist programme in the following season. Prior to the cancellation of the 2019/2020 season at the ROH, Filipe understudied Tamino in Die Zauberflote and performed Gastone and Erster Gefangener in La Traviata and Fidelio respectively. Cancellations prevented Filipe’s role debuts in both The Turn of the Screw as Prologue/Peter Quint and Fenton Falstaff. Concert and recital performances include the Royal Opera House Stars Gala, singing with Lisette Oropesa and Gerald Finely conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, Christmas Gala Concert conducted by Mark Wigglesworth and an intimate recital of song and arias with Sir Antonio Pappano.