William Dazeley was born in Warwickshire in 1966 and is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge. He studied singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he won several prizes including the prestigious Gold Medal. He has also won the 1989 Decca Kathleen Ferrier Prize, the 1990 Royal Overseas League Singing Competition, the 1991 Richard Tauber Prize and the 1991 Walther Gruner International Lieder Competition.

William has appeared with many of the world’s important opera houses. Roles include Count in Cherubin, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, Anthony in Sweeney Todd, Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette, Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; The Count in Le nozze di Figaro, Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and title role in Owen Wingrave for Glyndebourne Touring Opera; Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin; Count in Le nozze di Figaro and title role in Don Giovanni at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Dr Faust at the Salzburg Festival and Chatelet conducted by Kent Nagano and Scherasmin in Oberon at the Theatre du Chatelet conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, which was also presented in concert at the Barbican, the Count in Le nozze di Figaro at the Pittsburgh Opera, Zurga in The Pearl Fishers at the San Francisco Opera, the Ferryman in Curlew River at the Edinburgh Festival, Papageno in Die Zauberfloete for English National Opera, the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro for Welsh National Opera, Maximilian in Candide with the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Marcello in La Boheme and Yeletsky in The Queen of Spades with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Concert appearances have included title role in Schumann’s Szenen aus Faust for a European tour conducted with Philippe Herreweghe and with concerts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Schumann’s Requiem for Mignon conducted by John Eliot Gardiner with the Monteverdi Orchesta; Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Royal Flanders Philharmonic conducted by Herreweghe and at the Casa da Musica, Porto; Corigliano’s Dylan Thomas Trilogy with the BBC Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin; Christmas Oratorio with the Berlin Philharmonic; the world premiere of songs by Harrison Birtwistle for the BBC Proms conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi, Mahmoud in John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Das Paradies und die Peri with the San Francisco Symphony, Das Klagende Lied with the RTE Orchestra, Carmina Burana with the Orchestre du Capitole Toulouse, Britten’s War Requiem at the Aspen Festival, L’Enfance du Christ with London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davies, the Brahms Requiem with the Monteverdi Choir conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, concerts of Das knaben Wunderhorn with Orquestra Nacional do Porto, and concerts of L’Enfance du Christ with Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg conducted by Ivor Bolton.

World premieres include the lead role of Jesus in Harrison Birtwistle’s The Last Supper at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim, which was then repeated at the Glyndebourne Festival; and Hosokawa’s Hanjo, which was presented at the Aix en Provence Festival and Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels.

William gives recital performances at the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, St George’s Bristol, and Chatelet, and is regularly invited to sing at Cheltenham, Aix en Provence and Saintes Festivals with such noted accompanists as Graham Johnson and Iain Burnside.

In the 2008/09 season engagements for William Dazeley included a Gershwin double bill and Posa in a new production of Don Carlos for Opera North and concerts of Carmina Burana with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. In the 2009/10 season William Dazeley’s engagements include the title role in Eugene Onegin with the New Zealand Opera, The Brothers in concert with Bochumer Symphoniker, concerts of L’Enfance du Christ with the Bayerische Rundfunk Munich and of Carmina Burana with Opera North, Marcello in La Boheme at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, and The Father in Hansel und Gretel for Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

In 2010, he made his Bolshoi Theatre debut as Gabriel von Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus).