KATHRYN HARRIES

SOPRANO

Kathryn Harries is internationally renowned for the extraordinary breadth of her repertoire and for the dramatic intensity of her performances. She studied singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music with Constance Shacklock and Flora Nielsen.
After leaving the Royal Academy, Kathryn Harries spent some years dividing her time between presenting the award-winning Television series `Music Time' (of which she recorded over 60 programmes and an associated LP) and a developing concert career. She made her Royal Festival Hall debut in 1977 since when she has been in considerable demand in repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to the 20th Century.
Kathryn Harries made her operatic debut in 1983 as Leonore (Fidelio) for Welsh National Opera. Operatic engagements in the UK since then have included Gutrune (Götterdämmerung) and Protagonista (Un Re in Ascolto) at Covent Garden; Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Gutrune, Adalgisa (Norma), and The Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos) for Welsh National Opera; Irene (Rienzi), Katya Kabanova, Donna Anna (The Stone Guest), Leonore, Kundry (Parsifal) A Lady (From Morning to Midnight by David Sawer), Valerie von Kant (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant by Gerald Barry), all for English National Opera, Dido (The Trojans), Senta (Der Fliegende Holländer), Leonore, Judith (Duke Bluebeard's Castle), Emilia Marty (Makropulos Case), Hedda Gabler, Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) and Kabanicha (Katya Kabanova) for Scottish Opera, Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) for Opera North, Countess Geschwitz (Lulu) and Clairon (Capriccio )at Glyndebourne.
Kathryn Harries made a sensational US debut in 1986 as Kundry under James Levine at the Metropolitan Opera New York, and has since returned as Gutrune (also under James Levine) and Clairon (Capriccio). For the Lyric Opera of Chicago she has sung Marie (Wozzeck), Protagonista, Kostelnicka (Jenufa) and most recently the world premiere of Bolcom’s A Wedding. In San Francisco she has sung Kostelnicka. She is a regular visitor to France where her many engagements have included Dido in the first complete performances in France of Les Troyens at the Berlioz Festival in Lyon, Carmen at the Orange Festival, Sieglinde in Paris and Nice, Protagonista, Carmen, Kundry and Begbick (Mahagonny) and Mère Marie (Les Dialogues des Carmelites) at the Bastille in Paris, Giulietta (Hoffman) at the Châtelet, the title role in Herodiade in Liege, and Kabanicha and Kostelnicka in Lyon. For the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam she has appeared as Senta, Mere Marie, Kostelnicka, in the title role of Arianne et Barbe-Blue, and in Marco Polo (by Claude Vivier). In Brussels she has enjoyed great success as Carmen and Dido (Les Troyens). For Geneva Opera she sang Gertrude (Hamlet). In Germany and Austria engagements have included Donna Elvira, the title role in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Nono's Intolleranza for the Stuttgart Opera, Madame Croissy (Les Dialogues des Carmelites) for the Hamburgische Staatsoper, and concert performances of Der Fliegende Holländer in Linz and Bamberg. In Israel she has sung Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana) and Carmen for the New Tel Aviv Opera. For the Easter Salzburg Festival and in Berlin she sang Mrs Sedley/Peter Grimes with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, and had an enormous success singing Kostelnicka at the 2004 Glyndebourne Festival.
Kathryn Harries also appears regularly on the concert platform, with recent engagements including concerts with the English Northern Philharmonia, , Der Neue Orpheus in the BBC Symphony Orchestra Weill weekend at the Barbican, and Begbick (Mahagonny) at the BBC Proms, in Bremen and Luzern with the BBC Philharmonic.
Future commitments include Carmélites in Bilbao and Hamburg, Zimmerman’s Die Soldaten for the 2006 Ruhr Triennale, Mrs Grose (The Turn of the Screw) in Oviedo, and Kostelnicka (Jenufa) for the Angers Nantes Opera.