Ru Charlesworth
Praised for their “strong presence and a powerful, supple tenor” (The Guardian), Ru Charlesworth enjoys a busy career on the operatic stage and concert platform.
Ru begins the 2025–26 season at Opéra national de Paris, singing the role of Lurcanio in Ariodante (Raphaël Pichon). Later, they return to English National Opera as Emilio in Partenope (Christian Curnyn), followed by their house debut at Teatro Real, Madrid, in the role of Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Ivor Bolton). In the summer, Ru sings two roles at Glyndebourne Festival: Tanzmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos (Robin Ticciati) and Maintop in Billy Budd (Nicholas Carter). Future seasons see Ru return to the Royal Opera House and Glyndebourne Festival, and make their house debut at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Past seasons have seen Ru perform on many of the world’s leading stages. Engagements include: the Witch of Endor in Saul and Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne Festival; Oronte in Alcina for Opéra national de Paris and for the Royal Opera House; Tanzmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos, Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Damon in Acis and Galatea for Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; Sellem in The Rake’s Progress for Glyndebourne Festival and Opéra national de Paris; Bob Boles in Peter Grimes for Theater an der Wien; Prinz in The Love for Three Oranges, Jonathan in Saul, and the tenor soloist in the staged Messiah by Damiano Michieletto for Komische Oper Berlin; Tamino in Die Zauberflöte and Narraboth in Salome for Staatsoper Hannover.
In concert, Ru has sung with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in Mozart’s Mass in C minor (Edward Gardner) and Haydn’s Paukenmesse (Vladimir Jurowski), and returned to English National Opera to sing Lord Darnley in concert performances of Mary, Queen of Scots (Joana Carneiro). Elsewhere, they have performed Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium with Noord Nederlands Orkest; Messiah with La Cetra Barockorchester; Narrator in Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda with the Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música, Porto, under Laurence Cummings; as well as Third Angel and John in George Benjamin’s Written on Skin with the Gulbenkian Foundation Orchestra.
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Ru has worked with many notable conductors and orchestras including Riccardo Minasi, Jonathan Cohen, Susanna Mälkki, George Petrou, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Les Musiciens du Louvre/Marc Minkowski, Nicholas Kraemer, Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Tõnu Kaljuste, Ensemble Café Zimmermann, Capella Amsterdam/Daniel Reuss, Ensemble Matheus/Jean-Christophe Spinosi, and Accademia Bizantina/Ottavio Dantone.
Ru was a 2011 Academy Laureate of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and won both the Jury and Audience Prizes of the 2013 Handel Singing Competition, achievements they repeated at the 2014 International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti. In 2023, the Royal Opera House production of Alcina, in which they sang the role of Oronte, won the Olivier Award for “Best New Opera Production.”
Ru Charlesworth read Music at King’s College London and studied with Philip Doghan. They trained at the Royal Academy of Music, where they were generously supported by the Karaviotis Scholarship, the John Kenneth Adams Scholarship, the Josephine Baker Trust, the Countess of Munster Trust, and Mr and Mrs Sommerville.