After reading Classics at St John’s College, Cambridge, British tenor Xavier Hetherington took his Master’s degree at the Royal College of Music as a Their Serene Highnesses Dr Prince Donatus and Princess Heidi Von Hohenzollern Scholar. He graduated in 2020 with Distinction and moved to the Mascarade Opera Studio (MOS) in Florence for nine months, then was accepted into the Centre de Perfeccionament at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, where he trained for 6 months. Xavier has benefited from the generous support of the King-Farlow Trust, Mr Simon Groves, Mr and Mrs McGowan Stuart and Mr John Rae and is an Opera Prelude Young Artist.

Recent engagements include Don José Carmen (Waterperry Opera Festival); Scrofulous/Toady/Seer/Saul in a new Purcell/Pountney project Masque of Might, Shepherd and cover Orpheus (Monteverdi) and Mini Vixen (all Opera North); L'Incoronazione di Poppea with Harry Bicket and The English Concert Orchestra (Madrid and Barcelona);  Ahasuerus in Handel's Esther (Solomon's Knot, Wigmore Hall, Halle Händel-Festspiele and Musikfestspiele Saar); Mozart's Requiem (Wurzburg Mozart Festival); Tenor solo in Singalong Messiah (Reisopera); Lieutenant Kotler A Child in Striped Pyjamas (Echo Ensemble); Verdi’s Requiem (Royal Albert Hall); concerts with Opera Prelude and the Royal Philharmonic Society, Shepherd La liberazione Di Ruggiero Dall’isola D’Alcina and cover Ferrando Cosí fan tutte (Longborough Festival); an opera gala at the 20th anniversary of the Encuentro de la Música in the Palacio de Festivales, Santander; Lensky Eugene Onegin, Tebaldo I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Don Ramiro La Cenerentola in a scenes showcase at La Fenice; and the trio from Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti at the Palau de les Arts, Valencia.