MBA | Creative

Paul Arden-Griffith

Paul graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music, and made his London operatic debut at the Sadlers Wells Theatre as Sellem in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, and played Puck in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the same season. Principal roles with English National Opera and the Royal Opera at Covent Garden quickly followed.

Paul is a recipient of the Who’s Who in Music diploma for distinguished services to music, and has sung over seventy operatic roles to date, including Count Almaviva in the Rossini bicentennial U.K. touring production of The Barber of Seville. Throughout the past two decades, Paul’s talents have fully embraced the London music scene. Concert work has involved him in oratorios and recitals at St. Johns, Smith Square; the Wigmore Hall; the Royal Naval Collegeand on the South Bank. In the West End, he created the role of Monsieur Reyer in Hal Prince’s production of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, after which he was joined by the D’Oyly Carte soprano Evette Davis touring the U.K. in Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Great British Musicals.

With numerous appearances at European arts festivals and solo concerts in Sydney; Hong Kong; Singapore and California’s Palm Springs, Paul has firmly established an international reputation. In 1998, he made his German music-theatre debut in Sir Trevor Nunn’s staging of Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard. More recently, at a major U.K. charity gala, Paul had the great pleasure of partnering the Oscar winning actress Dame Judi Dench in a poignant rendition of Lerner and Loewe’s I Remember It Well, and early last year he was sharing the Covent Garden stage with Sir Thomas Allen; Felicity Palmer and Rosalind Plowright in the Royal Opera/Lyric Opera of Chicago co-production of Stephen Sondheim’s masterwork Sweeney Todd, singing the role of Beadle Bamford. Paul has played in Holland Park as a tap-dancing Dr. Blind in Tom Hawkes’ production of Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, and later that year sang Don Jose in a new production of Bizet’s Carmen.

In 2005 Make It So Production Realisation was born and Paul played the Emperor of China in Aladdin and his magical lamp at the Madinat Theatre, Dubai. With this company he gave vocal and musical direction on Guys and Dolls at The Connaught Theatre, Worthing. Further production work followed with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and The Adventures of Sinbad in Dubai and A Christmas Carol at The Royal Pavilion, Brighton. Paul travels to The Netherlands where he is a regular guest lecturer at the Koorenhuis in The Hague. He frequently gives master-classes and teaches vocal and stage technique at music and theatre-arts colleges in this country and abroad.

He is a Creative Associate of London Opera Vocal, presenting courses at London’s National Opera Studio and the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music. Paul has recently played with The Pocket Orchestra in their production ofThe Unlikely Lives of the Great Composers, which also featured Sylvester McCoy enjoying a successful run at The Trafalgar Studios, London. For the last three years, during the summer months, Paul has been directing productions, working as musical director and displaying his vocal expertise to American students at the renowned Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in New York.”

Paul has just finished giving his Emperor of China for Paul Holman Associates in Aladdin at The Derby Assembly Rooms.