Mark Glanville

Mark Glanville (born London, England) is an English classical singer and writer. He grew up in West London with his father, the writer Brian Glanville.

He chronicled his early life, including flirtations with the world of football hooliganism, studying Classics and Philosophy at Oxford University and forging an operatic career as a bass-baritone with Opera North, Scottish Opera, Lisbon Opera and New Israeli Opera among others, in his memoir The Goldberg Variations, published by Harper Collins in 2003 and shortlisted for the Wingate Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Sporting Club Award. In his memoir Glanville suggests that his interest in football violence had ended by the time of his marriage to the soprano Julia Melinek, but he later confessed to being drawn back into that world via the notorious hooligan firms of Millwall in south London. In the final chapter of his memoir Glanville claimed to have found his true identity as a Jew.

Among his opera recordings Glanville sang the role of Armando in Donizetti's L'assedio di Calais for Opera Rara.

His later work as a singer moved away from the opera house towards the recital hall with the song cycle Yiddish Winterreise – A Holocaust Survivor’s Inner Journey told through Yiddish song, released on the Naxos label in 2010. Using songs from the Yiddish folk tradition, many in original arrangements by the composer/accompanist Alexander Knapp, Glanville took Schubert's Winterreise "as a symbol for the destruction of home and family". The programme was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. under the auspices of Pro Musica Hebraica.