Douglas Ray Williams is a singer and an actor of wide ranging interests, abilities, and repertoire. This season he sings the role of Gilgamesh in Martinů’s The Epic of Gilgamesh with the Neues Orchester Basel, Messiah with the Houston Symphony, and makes a role debut of Golaud in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with Opera Atelier. In concerts and opera Douglas has appeared with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Hungarian National Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and Swedish Chamber Orchestra in repertoire that includes Félicien David, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Puccini, and Stravinsky. Douglas can be heard on a slate of classical recordings, including Die Zauberflöte for Deutsche Gramophone with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Grammy-winning recording of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers with the Boston Early Music Festival, the world premiere of the late serialist Charles Wuorinen’s It Happens Like This, and recordings of Lully’s Alceste and Armide with Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques. As an actor he’s appeared as Nick Arnstein in Funny Girl at the Maine State Music Theatre, Bobby Biberti in Barry Manilow’s Harmony at LA’s Ahmanson Theatre, and wrote and performed three solo shows and an audio play entitled The Compound. He trained at the New England Conservatory of Music, Yale School of Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and Shakespeare & Company. Douglas is a passionate amateur naturalist and holds deep wonder for the forests of western New England and the Great Basin of the intermountain American west.
“Williams brought the music’s every turn to life”
—Texas Classical Review
“Douglas Williams was Golaud. A fine, towering rendering of Maeterlinck/Debussy’s tormented antagonist sung with great power and poignancy. A strikingly handsome, unfailingly charismatic performer possessed of formidable actorly skills, Williams quickly assumed command of the character. His portrayal of the deeply conflicted, paranoid prince utterly overwhelmed — forceful, frenzied, heartbreaking in unguarded moments, vulnerability and pathos half-hidden behind the eyes.”
—Opera going Toronto
“Impossible to resist.”
—The Financial Times
“Williams’s wickedly engaging bass voice”
—Gramophone
“Douglas Williams seems as if he is Giovanni incarnate”
—The Globe and Mail
“Mr. Williams unleashed the full power of his clear and incisive tone… superbly on his own terms.”
—The New York Times
“Williams was a star in the title role… singing with enviable harmonic capability.”
—Opera Canada
“Williams' beautifully sung, irrepressibly charming Figaro”
—Milwaukee Sentinel
“A mighty presence, booming and characterfully wicked”
—The New York Times
