We begin with congratulations to two Samling Artists who were called up to make both house and role debuts jumping in at Garsington Opera this month. Bethany Horak-Hallett sang Dorabella in Così fan tutte and Elin Pritchard (pictured above) took the title role in Dvořák Rusalka. Writing for the website Seen and Heard International, Clive Peacock praised her impressive performance and noted ‘Elin Pritchard’s break will certainly confirm her as the name to follow with Welsh National Opera in their upcoming autumn tour of La bohème.’ (see below for more details of WNO’s autumn season).
Full review Elin Pritchard grabs her opportunity to shine as Rusalka in Garsington’s big success
Competition successes
Harriet Burns won second prize and the German Lied prize in the song division of Concours musical international de Montréal, accompanied by fellow Samling Artist Ian Tindale. You can watch the film of their performance via the link on this page.
Maria Hegele and Filipe Manu made it through to the final round of the Neue Stimmen competition in Germany. Maria has also joined the newly founded Opera Studio at Volksopera Vienna and has recently signed to Sorek Artists Management in Berlin.
Britten Pears Artists
Baritone Kieran Rayner has been selected as a Britten Pears Young Artist for 2022/23, receiving a year of coaching, mentoring and performance at Snape Maltings.
BBC Music Magazine records of the month
Samling Artists feature on two consecutive Recordings of the Month for BBC Music Magazine. Lucy Crowe appears as the Angel with the English Concert and Harry Bicket in Handel’s La Resurrezione, In a five-star review, Berta Joncus writes ‘such divine vocalism is characteristic of Crowe’s overall performance – technically jaw-dropping, dramatically riveting and musically radiant.
classical-music.com/reviews/choral-song/handel-la-resurrezione-2/
July’s choice is a recording that we highlighted in our last round-up of Samuel Barber’s complete songs, including some that have never previously been recorded, with Samantha Clarke, Nicky Spence, Julien Van Mellaerts, Dominic Sedgwick and William Thomas among the line-up assembled by pianist Dylan Perez for the project. Reviewer Terry Blain concluded that ‘these two discs undoubtedly set a new benchmark in Barber’s vocal music, and every art song lover should have them.’
classical-music.com/reviews/choral-song/barber-complete-songs/
New recordings
Sally Matthews (The Governess) and Ed Lyon (The Prologue) appear in a new recording taken from live performances of The Turn of the Screw with Orchestre de la Monnaie and conductor Ben Glassberg.
Pianist Joseph Middleton joins baritone Samuel Hasselhorn on ‘Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe’, a recital disc of Schubert songs. We look forward to welcoming Joseph to lead our next Samling Artist Programme masterclass week in November 2022.
Season announcements
Staatsoper Hannover
Kiandra Howarth makes role debuts in the title role of Rusalka and as Madame Lidoine Dialogue des Carmélites for Staatsoper Hannover and appears as Alcina, Mimi La bohème and Countess Le nozze di Figaro.
Oxford Lieder
Oxford Lieder have announced details of this year’s festival, running from 14 – 29 October on the theme ‘Friendship in Song: An Intimate Art’. Samling Artists appearing in the festival include singers Benjamin Appl, Stuart Jackson, Nick Pritchard, Kathryn Rudge, William Thomas and Oxford Lieder Young Artist Emily Christina Loftus and pianists Natalie Burch, Libby Burgess, Jocelyn Freeman, Kunal Lahiry, Joseph Middleton, Ian Tindale and William Vann.
Four lunchtime concerts from the festival will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 as part of the Vaughan Williams 150th anniversary celebrations, all of them featuring Samling Artists: listen out for Kathryn Rudge (18 October), William Thomas (19 October), Libby Burgess (20 October) and William Vann (21 October).
Royal Opera House 2022/23
As usual, there are plenty of Samling Artists appearing in next year’s Royal Opera House season, including house debuts for Sarah Gilford and Rowan Pierce:
The full list so far is:
Don Giovanni: Christopher Maltman (Leporello)
La Bohème: Lucy Crowe and Simona Mihai (Musetta) Dominic Sedgwick (Schaunard)
The Magic Flute: Filipe Manu (Tamino), Alexandra Lowe (First Lady), Samantha Price (Second Lady) Rowan Pierce (Papagena)
Rusalka: David Butt Philip (Prince)
Werther: Sarah Gilford (Sophie)
The Marriage of Figaro: Anna Stéphany (Cherubino)
Welsh National Opera
There’s something of a Samling Artist takeover in the two casts for Welsh National Opera’s autumn touring production of La bohème with Anush Hovhannisyan and Elin Pritchard (Mimi), Haegee Lee and Aoife Miskelly (Musetta) and Luis Gomes (Rodolfo). In other casting announced for WNO, Nicky Spence sings the role of Albert Gregor in Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair.
