Hubert Francis

In the 2013/14 Season Australian tenor Hubert Francis sings Hunchback Brother (Die Frau ohne Schatten) and Spoletta (Tosca) for The Royal Opera. Francis is a former member of The Royal Opera’s Young Artists Programme. His previous roles for the Company include Spoletta (Tosca), Male Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia), Harlekin (Der Kaiser von Atlantis) and Trin (La fanciulla del West).

Francis was born in New South Wales. He worked for the Australian airline Quantas before embarking on a singing career. Francis studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and the London Centre for Theatrical Studies. In addition to his work at the Royal Opera House, he has performed worldwide in roles including Herod (Salome) in Singapore and Adelaide, Drum Major (Wozzeck) in Paris, New York, Dortmund, Los Angeles, San Francisco, at the Royal Festival Hall and for Welsh National Opera, Shabby Peasant (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) in Toronto, Thibault (Les Vêpres siciliennes) in Amsterdam and Geneva, Terry Bond (Benedict Mason’s Playing Away) and Ferdinand (Karl V) at the Bregenz Festival, Vítek (The Makropulos Affair) in Helsinki and Goro (Madama Butterfly) and the Gamekeeper (Rusalka) in Geneva He also appears regularly in concert in repertory including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel.

Francis is married to mezzo-soprano Anne-Marie Gibbons, whom he met while they performed in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at the RNCM. He and his family live in Ireland.