Phillip Rhodes

Phillip Rhodes is a New Zealand-born baritone opera singer.

Life Rhodes was born in Hastings, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. He is of Māori descent, with a Pākehā mother and affiliating to the iwi Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Kahungunu on his father's side. Rhodes was raised in poverty, in a state house, with an abusive alcoholic father who was frequently unemployed. At the age of nine his father died, and he and his five sisters were taken from his mother and put into foster care home named 'Wharekoa' in [Havelock North] from where, he attended Anderson park Primary then on to Havelock North Intermediate, before attending Havelock North High School. The couple were community leaders who rehabilitated prison inmates and taken in over 200 foster children over 30 years; Henare O'Keefe was a Hastings councillor, and Pam O'Keefe was known as the "mother of Flaxmere".

In this more supportive family environment, Rhodes flourished. His love for music and performance was kindled while watching Henare O'Keefe singing and speak to enthralled audiences. with his encouragement, Rhodes re-enrolled and graduated in 2004 with a Diploma in Arts and Voice. By 2016 he was an established international opera singer, based in Wales and working with an opera company in Leeds.

Career Supported by the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation, Rhodes studied at the Auckland Opera Studio. He studied in Wales at the Cardiff International Academy of Voice before joining the Royal Opera House to sing Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor. In 2011–2012 he was a Young Artist/Fellow supported by the Dame Malvina Major Foundation.

At the 2012 New Zealand Festival of the Arts Rhodes sang the title role in New Zealand Opera's world premiere of the Jenny McLeod opera Hōhepa.

He first played Figaro in February 2020 with Opera North, in a revived 2015 production by Jo Davies of The Marriage of Figaro. He was praised for his "considerable acting skills and dark voice".

He made his debut with Scottish Opera singing the role of the Father in Hansel and Gretel. The production, physically distanced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was filmed on 19 December 2020.

In November 2020 Rhodes was one of a group of New Zealand singers in London who recorded the concert Whānau: London Voices of Aotearoa, far from home at the Royal Albert Hall. Rhodes returned to New Zealand in May 2021 to reunite with his adopted father. That month he sang Don Pizarro in a concert staging of Beethoven's Fidelio with the Auckland Philharmonia.

Honours and awards Rhodes was the winner of the 2005 New Zealand Aria Competition. In 2008 he won second place at the International Montserrat Caballé Competition.