Robert Lloyd was born in Essex and educated at Oxford University. He began life as an academic historian, turning to a singing career at the age of 28. In 1972 he was appointed Principal Bass at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where he sang an enormous range of repertoire. At the same time, he developed a freelance operatic and concert career which brought him appearances with all the major opera houses and orchestras throughout the world.

Robert Lloyd was the first British bass to sing the title-rôle in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1983. History was made in 1990 when this production was seen at the Kirov Opera in Leningrad with Robert Lloyd as Boris (televised internationally) and in 1991 he sang in this production again under Claudio Abbado at the Vienna State Opera. He also sang Boris Godunov in Amsterdam and Florence. His appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, included Rigoletto, Parsifal, Die Zauberflöte, Aida, Faust, Roméo et Juliette, Simon Boccanegra, Fidelio and Pelléas et Mélisande. He has appeared in concert with the Cleveland Orchestra under Dohnányi, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Jansons and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Haitink. With the London Symphony Orchestra under Colin Davis he performed and recorded Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Robert Lloyd has featured in several highly successful television productions, and was the subject of, and presented, a BBC programme on the bass voice entitled Six Foot Cinderella. He appeared in a television performance of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle on BBC 2, which received the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Television. He has also written and presented a number of radio programmes on opera and the voice for the BBC. He has a vast discography of over 70 audio and video recordings. In the 1991 New Year’s Honours List Robert Lloyd was created a Commander of the British Empire.