BIOGRAPHY

In 2021, Jeremy performed the title role in Le nozze di Figaro to critical acclaim in both Opera Queensland and West Australian Opera seasons in a new production from director Patrick Nolan, designer Marg Howell and with lighting by Bernie Tan-Hayes.

 

Jeremy's professional UK debut came as Bass Soloist for Bach Cantatas 33, 164 and 77 with the London Handel Players at the Tilford Bach Festival.  During the lockdown period Jeremy was featured online in Opera Queensland’s Aria A Day series and several of Tait Memorial Trust’s Tait Tuesday’s at Home concerts including ‘The Golden Age of Music Theatre’ and ‘Night and Day’ with Australia House Ensemble.

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Jeremy was the 2019 recipient of the Australian International Opera Award, joining the prestigious Opera Studio at the Royal College of Music, London for the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons with further support from the Basil Coleman Opera Award, Tait Memorial Trust, Australian Music Foundation and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust.

In association with the RCM, Jeremy has sung an Apostle in Elgar’s Apostles with the London
Philharmonic Orchestra, Traveller in the Moscow première of Britten’s Curlew River, Don Inigo
Gomez in L’heure espagnole and Ernesto in Il mondo della luna for which Music Omh wrote,
“Jeremy Kleeman offers an incredibly warm, smooth and secure bass-baritone as Ernesto”.

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In Australia, Jeremy completed his Master of Music (Opera Performance) program with Melbourne
Conservatorium of Music in conjunction with Victorian Opera in 2013, and has sung principal roles
with Opera Australia, State Opera of South Australia, Pinchgut Opera, Sydney Chamber Opera
and Victorian Opera and featuring on the concert platform with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra,
Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Canberra Symphony Orchestra amongst others.

 

From 2014 to 2015, Jeremy was the Joseph Sambrook Opera Scholar with Melba Opera Trust
and, in 2016, the recipient of the Dame Heather Begg Memorial Award. In the same year, Jeremy
received both Helpmann and Green Room Award nominations for the role of Magus in Musica
Viva/Victorian Opera’s national tour of baroque pastiche Voyage to the Moon.

Jeremy is proud to have performed in three world premieres of Australian operas, most recently
creating the roles of Reverend Stratton and Mr. Jeffris in Elliott Gyger and Pierce Wilcox’s bold
adaptation of Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda for Sydney Chamber Opera. In 2016, premiering
the role of Toby Raven in George Palmer’s adaptation of Cloudstreet with State Opera of South
Australia, and in 2013 and 2018, portraying Albert the Pudding in Calvin Bowman/Anna
Goldsworthy’s The Magic Pudding — The Opera. In 2017, Jeremy premiered ‘Husband’ in Hing-
yan Chan’s Double Happiness for the Canberra International Music Festival.

Other operatic roles include Walter Furst in Guillaume Tell (Victorian Opera), Second Elder in
Handel’s Susanna (Handel in the Theatre), Collatinus in Kip William’s daring production of The
Rape of Lucretia (Sydney Chamber Opera/Victorian Opera/Dark MoFo Festival), Famigliari
III/Tribuno II in L’incoronazione di Poppea (Pinchgut Opera), Badger and Parson in The Cunning
Little Vixen (Victorian Opera), and the title role in The Marriage of Figaro (Opera Australia Touring).

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Recent appearances on the concert platform include opera galas with Canberra and Queensland
Symphony Orchestras, Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 and Handel’s Messiah with Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra, Fauré’s Requiem with Royal Melbourne Philharmonic and J. S. Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion with Melbourne Bach Choir. In recital, 2019 engagements included an
appearance with Stefan Cassomenos for Musica Viva Australia’s Melbourne Morning Masters
series, and a European debut with soprano Alexandra Flood and pianist Rudi Spring at the
Northern Lights Festival in Tromsø, Norway.