Esswood, Paul (1942– )

English counter-tenor. He studied at the Royal College of Music, London, and made his debut in 1965, in the Messiah. His opera debut was in Berkeley, California, in Cavalli's Erismena, in 1968. He has appeared all over Europe in operas by Monteverdi and has recorded many of the church cantatas of Bach. He sang Death in the first performance of Penderecki's Paradise Lost (in Chicago, in 1978) and at La Scala in 1979. He created Glass's Akhnaten at Stuttgart in 1984. He also sang Handel's Admeto at Karlsruhe in 1990, and Riccardo Primo at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in 1991.