The bass-baritone Simon Bailey was born in Lincoln and read music at Clare College, Cambridge. He later studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Neil Howlett, before beginning a two-year contract at the La Scala Academy, Milan.

In August 2002 he joined the ensemble of Opera Frankfurt as a company principal. There he has appeared as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore. Other rôles in Frankfurt include Swallow in Peter Grimes, Alidoro in La Cenerentola, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Lord Sidney in Il viaggio a Reims, Angelotti in Tosca, Monsieur de Brétigny and Lescaut in Massenet’s Manon, Claudio in Handel’s Agrippina, Klingsor in Parsifal, the Animal Tamer/Acrobat in Lulu, Ferryman in Curlew River and the title rôle in Don Giovanni.

Awards include the 1999 American Express/Opera Holland Park Award for Outstanding Operatic Achievement, the Concorso Internazionale dell’Accademia del Teatro alla Scala 1999, the Concorso Vocale Internazionale di Musica Sacra 2004, and success as a semi-finalist in the Placido Domingo Operalia competition 2003.

His exceptional vocal range has enabled him to perform a rich variety of roles across the bass and baritone repertoire in the course of an international career that has brought appearances from La Scala, Milan to the Athens Festival, and from Cambridge to Lima.