Elisabeth Meister
British soprano Elisabeth Meister sang with us on Saturday 20th June 2010 in our Summer concert.
Elisabeth Meister (formerly Elizabeth Franklin-Kitchen) is a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Her roles on the main stage during the 2009/10 season include Pale Lady in The Gambler and High Priestess in Aida. In addition, cover roles include the title roles in Der Rosenkavalier and Aida and Polina in The Gambler.
She collaborates with composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Richard Thomas in preparation of Turnage’s new opera Anna Nicole Smith, the title role of which she will cover at the Royal Opera in 2011.
Recent successes include performing the role of the Fox in The Cunning Little Vixen at the Royal Opera, to great critical and public acclaim; following a performance of Verdi’s Requiem at Cadogan Hall, Antony Lias of Opera Britannia wrote, ‘If this is the quality we can expect from her right now, the mind boggles at the future possibilities … this young soprano is destined for the very top.’
Trained at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Miss Meister continued her development at the Cardiff International Academy of Voice, where she studied with Dennis O’Neill.
Operatic repertoire includes Fiordiligi in Così fan Tutte and Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda, both for English Touring Opera, Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro for Amici Opera, Judith Weir’s King Harald’s Saga for the London Contemporary Music Festival, Mimì in La Bohème and Marianna in Il Signor Bruschino for Opera Barga in Tuscany, and Woglinde in Das Rheingold in concert in Oxford. A well-established concert artist in the British Isles, her appearances include Haydn’s Creation with the Ulster Orchestra, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius and The Kingdom, Jenkins’ A Mass for Peace, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Mozart’s C Minor Mass, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Tippett’s A Child of our Time and Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony.
A frequent guest at St John’s, Smith Square, Elisabeth has appeared in Orff’s Carmina Burana with baritone Christopher Maltman, and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle among other works. Miss Meister has recorded for Naxos the soprano solos in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, Mozart’s Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall under Sir David Willcocks, which she later recorded for Hyperion Records, and Verdi’s Requiem at Canterbury Cathedral under Howard Ionascu and later at the same venue under Richard Cooke.
