Amanda Roocroft

Amanda Roocroft
Born Amanda Jane Roocroft
(1966-02-09) 9 February 1966
Coppull, England
Occupation
  • Opera singer (soprano)
  • Voice teacher
Years active 1989 – present

Amanda Jane Roocroft (born 9 February 1966) is an English operatic soprano, who in the course of a 25-year career has sung leading roles in the opera houses of Europe and North America.

She is also a voice professor at London's Royal College of Music and a Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where she herself had trained as a singer. Roocroft was the winner of the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for her performance in the title role of Jenůfa at the English National Opera.

Life and career

Roocroft was born in Coppull, a village in Lancashire, and was educated at Southlands High School and Runshaw College.[1] She then attended the Royal Northern College of Music where she studied singing under Barbara Robotham. In 1988 while still a student, she won the Kathleen Ferrier Award.[2] That same year she sang Fiordiligi in the college's production of Così fan tutte and in 1989 the title role in the RNCM production of Handel's Alcina—both to great praise from the British critic Michael Kennedy. He wrote of her performance in Alcina:

This was thrillingly beautiful singing, and she sustained it all evening. One has to write of it in terms of the young Seefried[lower-alpha 1] as the Composer and, a closer comparison, the young Baker[lower-alpha 2] in Handel. In 40 years of listening to young singers, I have never before heard, at this stage in development, a phenomenon to surpass Miss Roocroft.[3]

Roocroft made her professional recital debut in September 1989 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and her professional operatic debut in 1990 as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier with Welsh National Opera. House debuts followed at London's Royal Opera House (as Pamina) and Glyndebourne Festival Opera (as Fiordiligi) in 1991, and the Bavarian State Opera (as Fiordiligi) and the English National Opera (as Ginevra in Handel's Ariodante) in 1993.[4][5] In 1994 she was the subject of a Granada Television documentary Amanda Roocroft: Opera's Rising Star. The film, directed by Colin Bell, chronicled the first seven years of her career, beginning with her days as a student and ending with her solo recording debut for EMI Records.[6]

In North America, Roocroft made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1997 as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and sang at Houston Grand Opera in 2010 as the Governess in Turn of the Screw.[7][8] Roocroft's other roles in the latter part of her career have included Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, the Duchess in Powder Her Face, Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Case, and the title roles in Janáček's Jenůfa and Káťa Kabanová.[9][10][11]

In 2003 she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music from the University of Manchester, and in 2007 she received the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for her performance in the English National Opera's production of Jenůfa. Since the mid-2000s, she has also been a professor of vocal studies at the Royal College of Music in London.[12][13][14]

Recordings

Notes

  1. ↑ Irmgard Seefried
  2. ↑ Janet Baker

References

  1. ↑ Debrett's People of Today. "Amanda Jane Roocroft"
  2. ↑ Slonimsky, Nicolas and Kuhn, Laura (2005). "Roocroft, Amanda". Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Retrieved online via HighBeam Research 16 March 2015 (subscription required).
  3. ↑ Kennedy, Michael (May 1989). "Alcina. Royal Northern College of Music, March 5". Opera. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  4. ↑ Kennedy, Michael and Bourne, Joyce (2004). "Roocroft, Amanda". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, p. 615. Oxford University Press
  5. ↑ Rockwell, John (4 September 1989). "Critic's Notebook: Is She a Rising Star? Or a Flash in the Pan?. New York Times. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  6. ↑ British Film Institute. Amanda Roocroft: Opera's Rising Star (1994). Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  7. ↑ Metropolitan Opera Archives. Don Giovanni {445} Metropolitan Opera House: 11/5/1997. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  8. ↑ Cantrell, Scott (30 January 2010). "Houston Grand Opera's 'Turn of the Screw' is a tour de force". Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  9. ↑ Jeal, Erica (22 March 2005). "Review: Peter Grimes, Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  10. ↑ Ashley, Tim (22 September 2010). "Review The Makropulos Case". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  11. ↑ Hall, George (3 April 2014). "Powder Her Face review – Made memorable by Roocroft's duchess". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  12. ↑ The Society of London Theatre. The Laurence Olivier Awards: full list of winners 1976-2008. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  13. ↑ Opera (November 2003). "Newsdesk". Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  14. ↑ Royal College of Music. Amanda Roocroft. Retrieved 16 March 2015.

External links

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