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The purpose of art is to disturb the comfortable, and to comfort the disturbed.
The unfamiliar, sometimes very loud operatic voice itself can be disturbing for some; for others, a source of comfort. Art song, poetry and opera express the extremes of human emotion and experience. Join us as we dig beneath the polite veneer of familiar poetry and art song to the messy, disturbing passions that drove the creators of these works. |
ProgrammeRepertoire will include:
Debussy's Ariettes Oubliées as well as songs by Samuel Barber, selections from operas by Verdi and Wagner, folk song, and poetry. |
Laure Meloy |
Laure Meloy is a dramatic soprano, specialising in challenging 20th and 21st century opera. She has performed at the Royal Opera House, Hungarian State Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, and with English Touring Opera during their Olivier Award winning season. Her voice is featured on the soundtrack of the film Rocketmen.
Described in the London Evening Standard as 'stunningly confident, pure and accurate,' and in the Observer as 'virtuosic,' in 2021 she made her debut as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre at the Grimeborn Festival, and was praised for her 'deeply moving' performance and 'wonderfully rich' singing. Recent seasons saw her in the title role of Zaïde in Freiburg, Germany, performing Ariel in Thomas Adès’ The Tempest at Hungarian State Opera, and joining the roster of the Metropolitan Opera New York. Her album One Art won the Hawai'i Public Radio International Art Song Contest, and a monodrama featuring music from that collection received its London premiere at the Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2019. Meloy’s essays about life in the performing arts have featured in Arts Professional, the NCT Journal, the WNO Friends magazine, and she completed a memoir, From Aïda to Zaïde: scribblings of a mad soprano, in 2020. |
Gráinne Gillis |
Praised by the Observer as having a voice with 'rich, dramatic potential', Gráinne Gillis is an Irish-American contralto who grew up in Cork, Ireland. She read Music at UCC and graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Since retraining as an opera singer, roles have included DritteDame, Dama (Macbeth), Annina (La Traviata), Baba (The Medium), Flora Sandes in Dead Equal (ENO Baylis), Gertrud (Hänsel und Gretel). Ever-interested in new ways of presenting opera, in 2018/19 she sang Flora (King’s Head Theatre) in La Traviata and opened the London Song Festival. Other highlights included Hélène (Faust et Hélène), the Old Woman (Candide) and Principessa (Suor Angelica). She also organised a chorus of 120+ singers as the ‘Sing Him Out’ chorus for the Women’s March London in July 2018, which received worldwide media coverage. In 2019/20 she made her Irish debut as Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, and Vampyrmeister/Suse in Der Vampyr. Cancelled pandemic work included new Irish opera production Sea Trilogy. During the pandemic, Gráinne was involved in projects including No Room No Room No Room, Last Party on Earth, Bread and Circuses, and Femme Lunatique’s Objects and Apparitions. In 2022 she performed She-Ancient in The Midsummer Marriage, and Process:Dress (her one-woman shows) at WAF 2022. She also was in acclaimed Irish opera Morrígan at the Cork Opera House. Future roles include Erda (Siegfried - also directing); and Schwertleite for Regent’s Opera. In addition to her opera work, Gráinne is also a voiceover artist, actress and writer. |
Sarah Wilkinson |
Sarah Wilkinson studied music at King’s College London and Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She then furthered her studies on the ENO repetiteur course. She now works as a vocal coach and accompanist, based in North London.
She has worked with Opera Box , Opera Spezzata, Gala Opera, Opera Amazons, Highbury Opera Theatre and Opera School Wales as repetiteur and performance pianist/keyboard player. She is Accompanist and Assistant Director of the versatile London choral group Eclectic Voices, whose wide range of repertoire includes specially-commissioned new works. She is also the Director of the choir’s youth division, Highbury Youth Choirs. Sarah has enjoyed fruitful recital partnerships with Byron Jackson (baritone), Laure Meloy (soprano), Michael Harper (countertenor) and I Gemelli vocal ensemble. She plays for The Apollo Chamber Choir, The American International Church and Islington Music Centre. She has worked on many shows for Highbury Opera Theatre, including Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars; Britten’s Noyes Fludde; Jonathan Dove’s Tobias and the Angel; Scott Stroman’s jazz musical As You Like It; James Macmillan’s Clemency; Tales & Fables and Fever Pitch – The Opera by Stroman/Collison and most recently their new based on the Michael Palin play The Weekend. With Opera Amazons she showcased Patience & Sarah, a new opera by Paula Kimper based on Isabel Miller’s novel for the Hebden Bridge Festival. |