Jeremy Kleeman
A ‘versatile and charismatic performer’, Melbourne-born bass-baritone Jeremy Kleeman is a graduate of the Royal College of Music Opera School in London, a Samling Artist, and a former Victorian Opera Young Artist and Sambrook Scholar with Melba Opera Trust.
In 2025, Jeremy makes role debuts as Schaunard in La bohème with Opera Queensland and Abimelech in Samson and Delilah with Melbourne Opera, sings bass soloist in Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Purcell’s Ode on St Cecilia’s Day at the Woodend Winter Arts Festival and Bach’s St John Passion with the Melbourne Bach Choir.
Recently, Jeremy created the title role in the world premiere of Gilgamesh by Jack Symonds for Opera Australia and Sydney Chamber Opera in association with Australian String Quartet and Ensemble Offspring, The Saturday Paper writing: “Kleeman is well cast as Gilgamesh, singing with a rich, effortlessly noble bass-baritone laced with complex overtones.”
A champion of new Australian opera, Jeremy has also originated roles in George Palmer’s Cloudstreet as Toby Raven, Elliot Gyger’s Oscar and Lucinda as Reverend Stratton and Mr. Jeffris, Calvin Bowman’s The Magic Pudding as Albert the Pudding, Hing-yan Chan’s Double Happiness as Husband, and the baroque pastiche Voyage to the Moon as Magus, for which he was nominated for both Helpmann and Green Room Awards.
Other recent operatic highlights include Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with Opera Queensland, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Queensland, West Australian Opera, State Opera South Australia, and Opera Australia’s National Tour, Captain Corcoran in HMS Pinafore, and the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance, both with State Opera South Australia.
On the concert platform, he has appeared in Handel’s Messiah with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic, and with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis, and Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle.
He has also performed with Victorian Opera, Pinchgut Opera, Musica Viva, and the Queensland and Canberra Symphony Orchestras. Internationally, he has sung Elgar’s The Apostles with the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, performed with the London Handel Players at the Tilford Bach Festival, appeared in recital at the Northern Lights Festival in Norway, and sang the role of the Traveller in the Moscow premiere of Britten’s Curlew River.
Jeremy is a Green Room Award winner, and recipient of both the Dame Heather Begg Memorial Award and the Australian International Opera Award.