Baritone Sam Hird is a Jette Parker Artist at the Royal Opera House for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons. He made his Royal Opera debut in May 2025 when he stepped in as cover to play the title role in two performances of Telemann’s Pimpinone in the Linbury Theatre. He  will make his main stage Covent Garden debut as Baron Douphol in Richard Eyre's production of Verdi's La Traviata.

 

He was a member of the Opera Studio at the Royal College of Music from 2024-25, studying with Peter Savidge and Sir Thomas Allen. He previously graduated with a Masters degree at the RCM in 2024 and was awarded the prestigious Tagore Gold Medal.

 

Recent opera roles include Count Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with the RCM Opera Studio in March 2025 directed by Jeremy Sams and conducted by Michael Rosewell – recorded live by OperaVision and now available on YouTube. Opera magazine said: "Sam Hird exuded assurance in every aspect of his performance, including the technically tricky conclusion to his aria."

 

Sam played ​Danilo in Léhar's The Merry Widow, directed by Liam Steel, at the RCM in March 2024. Yehuda Shapiro, reviewing the production for Opera, said: "Sam Hird, singing firmly but with a stylish lightness of touch, owned the stage as a Danilo should, his charm both assured and unforced".

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​​In June 2025 Sam took part in a Wigmore Hall recital of songs by the late-Romantic French composer Mel Bonis, and made his farewell to the RCM as the Narrator in Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, directed by Sir Thomas Allen.

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Upcoming roles with the Royal Opera in the 2025-26 season include Mityukha in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Marullo in Verdi's Rigoletto, and Mark, Hewson and Krumpelblatt in the Jette Parker Artists Programme chamber productions of The Departure by Elizabeth Maconchy, Making Arrangements by Charlotte Bray and Four Sisters by Elena Langer. Cover roles include Papageno in The Magic Flute and Schaunard in La bohème.

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In 2024 Sam was awarded the Clonter Opera Prize – the annual competition for nominees from each of the UK's top music conservatoires – and the Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Competition with the Sinfonia Smith Square, where he is now an associate artist. 

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​​In May 2024 Sam made his Wigmore Hall debut in a recital with songs by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Joseph Horovitz. 

 

He was joint winner of the Prix Thierry Mermod vocal award at the 2023 Verbier Festival, where he was part of the Atelier Lyrique performing in opera, song concerts and masterclasses including with Thomas Hampson, Véronique Gens and Barbara Frittoli. 

 

Sam was awarded the RCM's Tagore Gold Medal for 2024, given annually to two students judged to have made "outstanding contributions musically and in other important ways to the life of the Royal College of Music.

 

Recent engagements include Ramiro in Ravel's L'heure espagnol in a triple bill by the RCM Opera Studio, Peer in Grieg's Peer Gynt with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Adam Hickox at Cadogan Hall; baritone soloist in Brahms' Ein Deutches Requiem with the Liverpool Philharmonic; and as a Rising Star at the Shipston Song Festival.

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Previous experience includes the Ambassador in Respighi’s La Bella Dormente nel Bosco, Biagio in Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni Tenorio, Libby Larsen’s Barnum’s Bird and Mozart’s The Magic Flute, all  at the RCM; baritone solo in Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony conducted by Jonathan Willcocks; Jesus in Bach’s St John Passion with Milton Keynes Chorale; soloist in Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass with St George’s Singers at Manchester Cathedral; baritone solo in Handel’s Messiah with the Orchestra of St John’s at Dorchester Abbey conducted by John Lubbock, and bass chorus in Leoncavallo’s Zingari with Opera Rara and the RPO conducted by Carlo Rizzi at Cadogan Hall and the 2022 recording.

 

Sam is a Samling Artist and has been generously supported by the Josephine Baker Trust and the Richard Silver Scholarship.