ALISON KETTLEWELL – MEZZO SOPRANO
BIOGRAPHY - OPERA
Alison was born in Taunton, Somerset and graduated in drama before studying singing at the Royal Northern and Royal College of Music (Opera Course). She was a winner of the AsLiCo Young European Opera Singers’ Competition (at La Scala, Milan) and a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Awards.
Roles include Charlotte (Massenet’s Werther), Suzuki (Puccini's Madama Butterfly), Dorabella (Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte) and The Secretary (Menotti’s The Consul) for Opera Holland Park; Kate Pinkerton (Madam Butterfly) and Mercedes (Carmen) for Raymond Gubbay at the Royal Albert Hall; Donna Elvira (Mozart's Don Giovanni) in Como, Pisa and Lucca, Diamantina (Gluck’s L’Isola di Merlino) at Cremona, Mantova and Brescia, Dorisbe (Galuppi’s Gustavo I Re di Svezia) at the Montepulciano Festival, Diana (La Calisto) Batignano Festival (Italy); Ramise (Handel’s Arminio) London Handel Festival, Lucilla (Rossini’s La Scala di Seta) in the Wexford Festival Scenes; Romeo (Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi) pre-generale for Opera de Montpellier; Delilah (Saint-Saens' Samson and Delilah) at the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea; Suzuki (Clonter Opera, Mid Wales Opera and Co-Opera, Ireland); Rosina (Rossini’s Barber of Seville), Cherubino (Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro) and Donna Elvira for Garden Opera; Mother in world premiere of The Juniper Tree by Roderick Watkins (Almeida Opera and Munich Biennale) and Servant (Ion) by Param Vir for Opera du Rhin and Music Theatre Wales in Strasbourg, Berlin and The Linbury, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Bessie in Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny (The Opera Group); and Giraffe in ENO Baylis’s Early Earth Operas, Dangeville in Adriana Lecouvreur for Chelsea Opera Group at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Judith (cover) in Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle for ENO.
Recent engagements include Marguerite (cover) Berlioz's Damnation of Faust for ENO and Siegrune in Die Walkure with the Halle under Sir Mark Elderto be released on CD and broadcast this autumn. Last summer she sang Fricka in Die Wakure at Longborough Festival.