Clay Hilley

Clay Hilley is an American heldentenor, one of the very small number of singers worldwide capable of the heroic Wagner tenor roles. From Statham, Georgia, he trained at the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, the Manhattan School of Music and Boston University’s Opera Institute, and had his international breakthrough at the Bayreuth Festival in 2022, stepping in as Siegfried in Götterdämmerung with a single day’s notice; he returned to Bayreuth as Tristan in 2023. He won the Richard Tucker Award in 2024 and has become one of the most sought-after Wagner and Strauss tenors of his generation.