Philip van Lidth de Jeude
has been teaching voice and piano at CSM since July 2013 and has participated in several faculty concerts. An alumnus of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, Manhattan School of Music, and the Ryan Opera Center in Chicago, he sang several supporting roles with its parent company, Lyric Opera of Chicago. Winning a Bronze Medal in the 1981 International Competition for Musical Performance in Geneva, Switzerland, he began a free-lance career, singing supporting and leading baritone roles in several theaters in the U.S. In August 1982, Wolf Trap Opera featured him as Ben Hubbard in a revival of Marc Blitzstein’s Regina (based on Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes). Michigan opera Theater featured him as Miecznik in the U.S. premiere of Moniuszko’s The Haunted Castle later that year. Beginning the transition to tenor in 1983, he was included in the Dictionary of International Biography, Volume XIX, in 1984 and in the International Who’s Who in Music, Tenth Edition, in 1985.
He resumed singing as a tenor in 1986 in various concerts in the U.S. before going to Zurich, where he made his European tenor debut as Malcolm in Macbeth with the Zurich Opera. In his first permanent engagement in Würzburg, he sang the title role in the German Premiere of Lorenzo Ferrero’s Salvatore Giuliano. He has sung extensively throughout the German-speaking areas of Europe and in the Netherlands, performing with the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf, Cologne Opera, Bavarian State Theater at Gärtnerplatz, and Nuremberg, among many others. Roles he has sung include Otello, Canio (I Pagliacci), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Radames (Aida) and Don Jose (Carmen). During the summer of 1995 he sang the role of Samson (Samson et Dalila) at the Spanga Opera Festival in the Netherlands to critical acclaim, and he has won special praise as Florestan, Peter Grimes, and the Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia.
In addition to portraying Harry McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie, Pierre/The Red Shadow in Desert Song and Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof (in both English and German translation), among other musicals, Mr. van Lidth also made a foray into the world of film acting. He played the Generalissimo in Abel, the Flying Lift Boy by BOS Bros. Film-TV Productions, based on the children’s book by Annie M. G. Schmidt, one of the most successful Dutch films of the past decades, having been shown by both WDR and Kinderkanal in Germany.
Continuing to appear in concert and recital, he has collaborated with pianist Deborah Lee Hollis in lecturing on and performing Schubert’s Winterreise at Duke University with a period fortepiano. Speaking five languages and singing in three others besides, his other interests include composing, arranging music, playwriting, film and theater, and he specializes in ear training and basic keyboard harmony as well as music theory.