Born in Northampton, Adrian Clarke studied at the Royal College of Music and the London Opera Centre.
Roles include: Hunch-backed Fiddler A Village Romeo and Juliet for the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari; Alcindoro for the Bregenzer Festspiele; for the Royal Opera House, he has sung Librarian Sophie’s Choice, Der Einäugige Die Frau ohne Schatten, John Shears Paul Bunyan, Sid La Fanciulla del West, Donald Billy Budd, Samiel Der Freischütz; for WNO Baron Douphol La Traviata, Escamillo Carmen (concert tour); for ENO Count Paolo in Leoncavallo’s La Bohème; for Opera North (and in Prague), four roles in Julietta (Martinu), Jack Spot in the première of Benedict Mason's Playing Away, Don Ferdinand in Gerhard's The Duenna (also recorded for Chandos; for Scottish Opera The Music Master Ariadne, the title role in The Barber of Seville, a role he has also sung for Dublin Grand Opera; for Glyndebourne Festival, Tomsky Queen of Spades; for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Benoît/Alcindoro; for English Touring Opera, Zurga The Pearl Fishers, Belcore L’Elisir d’Amore, Marcello La Bohème, the title role in The Barber of Seville; for Chelsea Opera Group, Kylian Der Freischütz; for Mid-Wales Opera, the title role Rigoletto; roles elsewhere include Nick Shadow The Rake's Progress.
In the field of contemporary music, he has sung for two consecutive years at the Bregenzer Festspiele - Kostandis Greek Passion (Martinu) and Afron The Golden Cockerel; in Maxwell Davies's The Martyrdom of Saint Magnus for Opera Factory; he created and recorded the role of The Maharal in John Casken's Golem at the Almeida Festival, which he toured with Northern Stage/Northern Sinfonia; Nigel Osborne's I am Goya and Rihm's Unsungen at the 1990 Musica Nova Festival in Glasgow and in Amsterdam; the première of John Cage's Europera 3 in London, Berlin, Strasbourg and Paris; the première of The Griffin's Tale (David Blake) with the Northern Sinfonia; Deceit in Gerald Barry's The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit for Channel 4 Television and on CD for Largo; Mr Emmet takes a Walk (Maxwell Davies).
Recent engagements: Gazella Lucrezia Borgia for the Buxton Festival, Sid La Fanciulla del West and Alcindoro for ROH, Traveller Death in Venice, Musiklehrer Ariadne auf Naxos and Mr Gedge Albert Herring for the Salzburger Landestheater, Sciarrone Tosca and Jack Spot Playing Away for the Bregenzer Festspiele, Haudy Die Soldaten for the Ruhrtriennale and in New York, Starveling A Midsummer Night’s Dream for La Fenice c. Sir John Eliot Gardiner, p. David Poutney, Zuvetli One Touch of Venus, Jones Der Kuhhandel Flamenco baritone La vida breve, Martino Love's Luggage Lost, Father The Seven Deadly Sins, Podesta The Thieving Magpie, Zuvetli One Touch of Venus for Opera North, Dan Cairo Carmen, Mitiuhka Boris Godounov, Kostandis The Greek Passion for ROH (and in Brno), Julietta at the Ravenna Festival.
Current season/future plans: Cailiph The Barber of Baghdad for the Buxton Festival, Haudy Die Soldaten for de Nederlandse Opera, Mathieu Andrea Chenier for the Bregenzer Festspiele, Baron Douphol for the ROH on tour in Japan, title role Blond Eckbert for Muziektheater Transparaant and the Bregenzer Festspiele.