Charlotte Richardson

Charlotte has just completed an MMus in Vocal Studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, studying with head of department Dr Linda Hirst. Whilst there, she was awarded the Helen Roll (2013) and Eva Malpass (2014) postgraduate scholarships and was highly commended in the North London Rosenbatt Prize. In her final year she won a place on the English National Opera’s Mentor Scheme and has enjoyed a year of collaboration with the best and the brightest in British opera. Before specialising in opera, Charlotte studied musicology at King’s College London, supervised by David Trendell. She held a choral scholarship (and was choral music librarian for two years), having previously held a Guinness Choral Scholarship to Christchurch Cathedral Dublin during her gap year. During her undergraduate she performed for two extended seasons at the National Theatre in their highly acclaimed production of Coram Boy and for the English National Opera Baylis as a chamber soloist. Charlotte also won the King's College London Advanced Performance Studies prize and attended the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with Dr Nicholas Clapton, before gaining a certificate of higher education in opera studies at the University of London’s Birkbeck College. She also studied acting on a full scholarship (her scholarship is now called the Kevin Spacey Foundation Scholarship) to the London School of Film Media and Performance, where she attained a Silver Medal award. After her time at university, Charlotte toured worldwide for several years as a soloist with Irish national choir Anúna (of Riverdance fame), making innumerable trips to Europe, the Americas, Asia and Scandinavia. As part of the group, she recorded six albums and three DVDs, including the famous soprano solos of Allegri’s Miserere, arranged by Anúna’s director Michael McGlynn. Charlotte has performed in a wide variety of opera productions, including as one of the ragazzi soloists in the Royal Opera House’s acclaimed performances of Donizetti’s Linda Di Chamounix, recorded and released by Opera Rara. Other roles include the title role in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (Winslow Hall - understudy), Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Holbourne Opera), Vitellia in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito (Trinity Laban), Maria Bertram in Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park (Hampstead Garden Opera), both Filicitas and Dincocrates in Nick Bicat’s oratorio-style opera Perpetua (Cantata Dramatica) and Gaspara Stampa in Caroline Heslop’s chamber opera Stratiami Amor (Blackheath Halls). Other recent performance venues include The Royal Festival Hall, The Hayward Gallery, The Barbican (and The Pit at the Barbican), Cadogan Hall, St James’s Piccadilly, The National Gallery and The Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. She enjoys frequent travels abroad, including thrice being awarded scholarships to study at the Esztergom Liszt Festival in Hungary as well as touring with the Philharmonia Chorus and the Blossom Street Singers. Contemporary opera is one of Charlotte’s main focuses, combined with a strong interest in physical theatre, puppetry and movement. She has recently worked on two large multi-disciplinary projects: an Arts Council funded opera exploration with The Puppet Centre and Central School of Speech and Drama as part of their Puppetry in Opera symposium (singing Judith Weir's King Harald's Saga) and a ‘Singing Through Puppets’ workshop series for a new production of Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream with chamber ensemble Chroma. Composers she has recently worked with include Jonathan Dove, Stephen McNeff, Caitlin Rowley and Simone Spagnolo. She is currently studying contemporary works by Ned Rorem and Harrison Birtwistle. Following the success of her performance of Caitlin Rowley’s solo opera Breadcrumbs at the Tête-à-Tête Festival (King’s Place) in summer 2014 (in the presence of Jane Manning who helped develop the work), Charlotte and Caitlin are currently devising an extension of the work for performance in 2016. Future engagements include the role of Helena in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Blackheath Halls) and Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte (Holbourne Opera) in late 2015. In September 2015 Charlotte will take up a scholarship to the Royal Northern College of Music to continue her studies at the college’s prestigious Opera School.