In June 2006, the actor and bass Mark Coles sang the role of Joe in Show Boat in the first fully staged musical ever to be performed in the Royal Albert Hall. That production was directed by Francesca Zambello with whom he had first worked when he began his professional career with San Francisco Opera in 1985. In that year, for the company’s Western Opera Theater, he sang Leporello in a tour of Don Giovanni, subsequently appearing in many roles on the main stage, including Starek (Jenufa) in 1986, and in the video production of La bohème in 1988. He returned in 2003 to sing the Old Convict in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, later appearing as the Sacristan (Tosca) and Nourabad (Les Pêcheurs de perles). In 1989 he became a finalist in the Belvedere Competition, which proved the beginning of his European career. In Germany he has sung Daland (Der fliegende Holländer), Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Henry VIII (Anna Bolena), Bartolo (Le nozze di Figaro), Banquo (Macbeth) and Ferrando (Il trovatore). He made his debut as Sarastro (The Magic Flute) at Opera North, and in Lyon and Geneva created the role of the Missionary in Michaël Lévinas’s Les Nègres. Besides Joe, which he has also sung in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Berne, his musical theatre credits include the Plant (Little Shop of Horrors), the Governor (Man of La Mancha) and Sweeney Todd.Mark Coles resides in Münster, Germany.