James Ley

American-born James Ley is a graduate of the Opera Studies programme at New York’s prestigious Juilliard School, where he was praised for his ​“pure tone and innocent expressiveness” (Opera Wire) and for his ​“lovely legato lines with his silvery tenor” (Seen and Heard International). 

For the 2020/21 season he was a member of the Opernstudio of Bayerische Staatsoper Munich as the recipient of an Opera Foundation scholarship, where he sang the Messenger in Aida under Zubin Mehta as part of the Munich Opera Festival.

The 2021/22 season included house debuts at Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona and Opéra National de Bordeaux as Ferrando with Les Musiciens du Louvre under Marc Minkowski. On the concert stage, he debuted with Opéra de Limoges in Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 and with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk in Mendelssohn’s Elias.

James Ley began the 2022/23 season with a debut at the Edinburgh International Festival as the Second Nazarene in  Salome with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.

He returned in the role as Ferrando in Cosí fan tutte in January 2023 in a special production of the Da Ponte Trilogy with Les Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski for performances and a recording in Versailles.

Spring 2023 he made his first appearance at Bühnen Bern as Vaudémont in Iolanta by Tchaikovsky, in a  new production by David Bösch. And in May he sang his first Schumann  Das Paradies und die Peri with Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, in Pamplona under music director Perry  So.

Updated September 2023