Reviews

Massenet: Manon
Los Angeles Opera (October 2006)
The entire cast melds superbly with the production's concept: Hyung Yun as Manon's opportunist cousin, Lascaut; Dale Travis as Manon's sugar daddy, De Bretigny; David Pittsinger as des Grieux's sympathetic father; and Ryland Davies as the debuached Guillot de Morfontaine.
Jim Farber

The supporting cast, too, was excellent, with the ageless Ryland Davies giving a demonstration of character-tenor villainy as the thwarted Guillot. [Opera, March 2007]
Hugh Canning

The veteran tenor Ryland Davies offers a particularly vindictive Guillot.
Allan Ulrich

... Ryland Davies, a spirited Guillot.
Maria Nockin

..tenor Ryland Davies, a most memorable world-weary presence as Guillot de Morfontaine.
David Gregson

Ryland Davies makes an appropriately greasy Guillot de Morfontaine, the villain of the piece.
Marc Porter Zasada

Ryland Davies, dressed in bright colours, is effective as de Morfontaine, the man who eventually destroys Manon's elegant happiness.
John Farrell

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin
Royal Opera House (March 2006)
The multi-coloured costumes for Tatyana's nameday party are garish. Poor Ryland Davies looks like a 19th-century Quentin Crisp as Monsieur Triquet. Visually the role is a borderline anti-gay stereotype, though being the trouper he is Davies nearly salvages it with his touching singing.
George Hall

..there are fine cameos fromSusan Gorton, Yvonnne Howard and Ryland Davies.
Andrew Clark

Yvonne Howard (Mme Larina) and Susan Gorton (Nurse) were good; so was Ryland Davies as Monsieur Triquet.
Andrew Porter

Massenet: Manon
Long Beach Opera (2005)
With Netrebko and Villzon in such ascendancy, no one else has much hope of commanding attention. Even so, Hyung Yun proved a dramatically clunky Lescaut (Manon's cousin), although an elegant baritone. The veteran tenor Ryland Davis did manage to turn in an amusing character performance as the old degenerate Lech Guillot. David Pittsinger was a pillar of strength as Des Grieux's father.
Mark Swed

Poulenc: The Carmelites
English National Opera (2005)
Ryland Davies gave everyone a master class in diction as the Chaplin.
Rodney Milnes

Poulenc: The Carmelites
English National Opera (2005)
These women dominate the opera, but there are strong performances also from Ashley Holland as Blanche's aristocratic father Peter Wedd as her brother and especially Ryland Davies, whose account of the Chaplin is a superb acting study.
George Hall (The Stage) 6th Oct 2005

"An admirable Belmonte"
Glyndebourne
"Ryland Davies gives us an admirable Belmonte, heroic, ardent, musicianly and vocally well-schooled even to the florid runs of "Ich baue ganz" which completely exclude this aria for most tenors. He is alive to the need for grammatical graces (as all his colleagues are not) and speaks his dialogue appreciatively though he has some difficulty with sung German. His duet with Constanze in Act 3, and duetting with Pedrillo at the end of the first act, were some of the major musical delights of tonight's performance."
William Mann

Le Nozze di Figaro
Glyndebourne
Ryland Davies' astute Basilio, the voice in fine fettle, is a survivor amid the sex and class war. He gives a master class in the art of comedy, no mugging, just finely-pointed acting. He deserved his rarely-performed Act IV aria.
David Blewitt

The excellent Ryland Davies - one of many original elements which may make this Figaro the hit of the season.
John Higgins

La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein
As Fritz, Ryland Davies (the only British singer in a principal role) revealed an unsuspecting talent for sauciness. His lively range of expressions was matched by clean lively singing. French had been mastered, and so had style. This was a charming performance.
Andrew Porter

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Ryland Davies makes a stylish Belmonte, honey-tones and sincere. He even manages to sing, with a grace, the difficult, often-omitted last-act aria.
Robert Levine

Rossini: The Turk in Italy
Albazar, Ryland Davies, given scarcely a dozen lines, sings them gloriously.
Roderic Dunnett

Verdi: Falstaff
Royal Opera House.

Ryland Davies, the new Fenton, provided the evening's most beguiling singing.
Eric Mason

Ryland Davies, is an excellently cast new Fenton, whose security of line and fine-grained lyrical quality of voice already promise great things.
Martin Cooper

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro
ENO at the Coliseum.
Among the supporting roles, I have to say that Ryland Davies as the music master, Don Basilio, was wonderful. His scheming, wheedling, manipulative and oily personality came slithering through like a New Labour soundbite politician, eager to please whoever was listening at any given moment.
John White

Kat'a Kabanova
Glyndebourne
The clever drawing of Tichon, by Ryland Davies, not simply as a feeble and flabby mother's boy but rather as a diffident, unaware, emotionally crippled man, added force to the picture of Kat's herself.
Stanley Sadie

Mozart: Die Zauberflote
Royal Opera House
Ryland Davies gives us a Monastatos of unusual richness and definition.
George Hall

Mozart: The Magic Flute
Haymarket Theatre, Leicester
The production has the considerable advantage of Ryland Davies as Tamino and Margaret Neville as Pamina. Davies sings Mozart beautifully and brought to the part of Tamino just the right degree of romanticism and idealism.
R.A.P.

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte
Grand, Geneva
Mr Davies, a Ferando whose more ramantic ardour is most beautifully expressed in a dreamy, floating "Un' aura amorosa", his betrayal bitterly projected in a furious "Tradito, schernito".
Kenneth Loveland

Verdi: Otello
Salzburg
Ryland Davies is a thoroughly sweet-voiced Cassio.
Alan Jefferson

Britten: Peter Grimes
Coliseum
Ryland Davies's subtle Parson Adams is especially touching as he leads off the cheerful pub-closing chorus: "Goodnight good people, good night."
Tom Sutcliffe

Janacek: The Makropulas Affair
Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Ryland Davies made a showpiece out of his Hauk-Sendorf.
Uwe Schneider

Massenet: Esclarmonde
Covent Garden
Ryland Davies, at his purest and sweetest as the knight, Eneas.
Edward Greenfield

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
Glyndebourne
The star performance comes from the veteran Basilio of Ryland Davies, from whom everyone else on the stage could learn a lesson on how to perform, vocally and dramatically, Mozart's comedy. He isn't absurdly seedy or greasy, but he subtly radiates loathsomeness. Whenever he was on stage, I had eyes only for him, but that isn't quite as it should be. Even so, the rewards of the performance were quietly cumulative, and I left it a considerably happier man than I entered - the required effect of Figaro, but not often achieved lately.
Michael Tanner

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
Glyndebourne
...the next most enjoyable contribution came from the veteran tenor Ryland Davies, who doubled the roles of the music teacher Basilio and the stammering lawyer Curzio. The clarity with which he put the text over, the directness and skill of his stage presence, and the imagination with which he handled conventional business, made this a real collector's item.
Tom Sutcliffe

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