Biography
Stephen Cviic was born in London to a Croatian father and an English mother. He cut his musical teeth as a boy treble and teenage flautist in Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra. He then took an English degree and had a varied career in journalism, but also found his adult tenor voice and began singing in choirs, later graduating to become a soloist in opera and concert. Since 2010, he has performed some of the classic roles in the tenor repertoire, including Cavaradossi (Tosca), Don Jose (Carmen), Alfredo (La Traviata), Turiddu (Cavalleria Rusticana), Macduff (Macbeth), the Prince (Rusalka), Tamino (Die Zauberflõte) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni).
Stephen is equally at home in song repertoire, and specialises in involving the audience by interspersing music with thoughtful, historically informed and sometimes witty verbal introductions to the pieces he is singing. As an oratorio soloist, he has performed, among others, the Verdi and Mozart Requiems, Puccini Messa di Gloria, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Handel Messiah and Judas Maccabeus, JS Bach and CPE Bach Magnificats, Bach Christmas Oratorio, and Tippett Seven Negro Spirituals.
Stephen sings regularly with Rose Opera, based in south-west London, taking leading roles in their fully staged productions, and helping to craft and produce the company's series of recitals at Leighton House in Kensington. He also had a long association with the Elysian Singers, appearing with them on well-reviewed CDs. He has worked with conductors including Sam Laughton, Lewis Gaston, Jeremy Summerly, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Danielle Gatti, and performed at London venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Albert Hall, and in places as far afield as Prague and Malta.
Stephen’s musical passions go well beyond vocal music, with an abiding love of orchestral and other instrumental repertoire, especially Mahler, Berlioz, Stravinsky, Vaughan-Williams and Tippett, and of Brazilian popular music, having spent three years in Brazil as a journalist. He is a devotee of the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, feeling that opera sometimes needs an injection of Sondheim’s pace and wit.
Stephen is a talented linguist, fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and Croatian. When not singing, he works as a translator. He is now learning the piano and also enjoys ballroom dancing.
