Born in London, Edward read music at King’s College, London, studying trumpet at the Royal Academy of Music. After graduating, he began working as a freelance musician with various orchestras and small ensembles, and in recording studios across the UK. Having begun singing in his late twenties, Edward quickly began to develop a professional career, studying privately with Russell Smythe and Raymond Connell.
In 2015 Edward became a member of the Glyndebourne Chorus, and worked for four years on various critically acclaimed productions, including performances at the BBC Proms and worldwide cinema broadcasts. Highlights have included Barry Kosky’s Saul, and performing in the semichorus of Brett Dean’s award-winning Hamlet. Since leaving the chorus, Edward has performed as a soloist for a variety of companies in the U.K. and abroad, including numerous performances broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.
Future plans include Alidoro La Cenerentola and cover Seneca L'incoronazione di Poppea (ETO). Recent engagements include performing the roles of Somnus/Cadmus in Opera Collective Ireland’s award-winning production of Handel’s Semele. For English Touring Opera Edward has performed the roles of Lord Sidney Il Viaggio a Reims, Achilla Giulio Cesare, Claudio Agrippina, General Polkan The Golden Cockerel, Banquo Macbeth and Bach’s St John Passion. He has also covered several roles for Glyndebourne, including Rocco Fidelio, Father Trulove The Rake’s Progress, Second Armed Man Magic Flute and Sparafucile Rigoletto. During the Covid period of theatre closures, Edward filmed two staged song cycles by Shostakovich Romances on Verses by English Poets and Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti for ETO.
For more news and information please visit www.edwardhawkinsbass.com
Bass Edward Hawkins, towering over the rest of the cast, was an appealingly awkward Lord Sidney, giving a surprisingly lyrical “Invan strappar dal core”, the lower voice secure and resonant.
Bass Edward Hawkins hits the heights – literally (he’s a head and shoulders taller than the rest of the cast) and musico-theatrically, as the lovelorn Lord Sidney, singing with focused resonance and foppish self-parody.
A fun scene shows the guests from different countries revealing their national characteristics as they sing their various anthems: Edward Hawkins is particularly good value as tongue-tied Englishman Lord Sidney, who knows only one tune, which is inevitably God Save the King.
For the most part, however, both the direction and performances pitch things exactly right. Thus, the English Colonel Lord Sidney’s aria ‘Invan strappar dal core’ at the start of Act II, in which he yearns for Corinna, benefits from the superb Edward Hawkins playing it totally straight. It is to his credit that he does not throw his arms around in exaggerated gestures, which many performers might have thought was the obvious thing to do in a dramma giocoso.
Edward Hawkins is charmingly awkward and shy
The smaller roles were well taken. Edward Hawkins returned as a rough-hewn Achilla, singing his two arias with aplomb, and giving the character due complexity. There is something naively trusting about the man, he actually believes Tolomeo, and Hawkins managed to make this believable.
There’s laudable work, too, in the secondary roles of the oily Achilla (Edward Hawkins)
The smaller roles were well taken. Edward Hawkins returned as a rough-hewn Achilla, singing his two arias with aplomb, and giving the character due complexity. There is something naively trusting about the man, he actually believes Tolomeo, and Hawkins managed to make this believable.
Thankfully, Edward Hawkins as Claudio was naive rather than a buffoon. He had a certain nobility as Caesar but also a desperate idiocy which came to the fore in the scene in Poppea's boudoir. It isn't a huge role, but Hawkins ensured that Claudio drew our ear and our eye by his simple presence.
Edward Hawkins is not quite the buffoon as Claudio, but renders the part with knowing irony, capturing something of his haplessness and naivete.
It is, of all things, the representation of Somnus, god of sleep, by bass Edward Hawkins, that brings the evening to a higher level. His singing is lucidly sonorous, gravely Handelian but with a sharp comic twist, and every word is clear. Aside from the vocal gymnastics, it is this production’s great showstopping moment.
But the comic turn of the evening (allied to a truly magnificent musical presence) comes from bass Edward Hawkins as the drooping, sleepy Somnus. I just wished he had a teddy bear to complete the picture.
Edward Hawkins was a sturdy Polkan
Edward Hawkins’ towering Achilla was another standout, making the most of the character’s brief arias
As the Voice of Neptune, Ed Hawkins was fittingly resonant and imposing