Elizabeth Watts
Soprano
Credit Marco Borggreve
View GALLERYMedia
BBC Symphony Orchestra, live concert. By kind permission of BBC Radio 3 April 2024
with BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann. Live broadcast by kind permission of BBC Radio 3, 2019
with BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus, Elisabeth Kulman (soprano), conducted by Sakari Oramo. BBC Proms 2017. By kind permission of BBC Radio 3
BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins. By kind permission of Hyperion Records, 2017
News
Elizabeth looks forward to joining forces again with Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms. This time - her eighth appearance in the past ten years...
MORENews
Elizabeth is looking forward to visiting the Netherlands in May for two programmes: Mozart and Beethoven concert arias with Richard Egarr followed by Mahler Symphony No 4 with Jun Märkl.
MORENews
On 16 and 17 January, Elizabeth Watts travels to Gothenburg to make her debut with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, also starting a new relationship with the conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada, to...
MORESuperbly performed by the Britten Sinfonia and Elizabeth Watts, who not only sang the solo part with flawless musicality and extraordinary passion, but somehow also managed to conduct the players as well.
Elizabeth Watts was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and studied archaeology at Sheffield University before studying singing at the Royal College of Music in London. She was awarded an Hon DMus from Sheffield in 2013 and became a Fellow of the RCM in 2017. She is a prolific recording artist, and her recordings include critically acclaimed discs of Lieder by Schubert and Strauss, Mozart arias with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Handel Brockes Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music.
Highlights
- Fiordiligi Così fan tutte; Countess Le nozze di Figaro; Elvira Don Giovanni– Welsh National Opera
- Aspasia, Mitridate, re di Ponto – Garsington Opera
- Ligeti Le Grand Macabre and Britten Spring Symphony – LSO & Sir Simon Rattle
- Mahler Symphony No. 2 – Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra & Andrès Orozco Estrada
- Strauss and Mahler – Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra & Vasily Petrenko
- Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony– Sakari Oramo & Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
- Recitals – Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Aldeburgh Festival
Biography
In the 2022/23 season, Elizabeth was engaged by the Britten Sinfonia to sing Britten Les Illuminations. As part of an ongoing relationship the following season made her London sing-direct debut with them with Songs of Nadia Anjuman by Richard Blackford, prompting Richard Morrison to write in The Times: “It was superbly performed by the Britten Sinfonia and Elizabeth Watts, who not only sang the solo part with flawless musicality and extraordinary passion, but somehow also managed to conduct the players as well”.
The current season sees her debut with the Bristol Ensemble, directing a programme featuring Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis, as well as sing/direct Britten Les Illuminations.
Other season highlights show her wide concert repertoire, ranging from Telemann Cantatas at the Wigmore Hall, Strauss Vier Letzte Lieder in Newbury, Brahms Requiem in Swansea with Thomas Zehetmair and Beethoven Symphony No 9 in London with Tan Dun to performances of a new James McMillan commission in Italy and London.
Last season saw her sing Mahler Symphony No. 2 with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Andrès Orozco Estrada and Symphony No. 4 with Jun Märkl in the Hague; Mozart and Beethoven with Philharmonie Zuidnederland and Richard Egarr and Bach St Matthew Passion at the 2024 Edinburgh International Festival with Ryan Wigglesworth.
Opera is also an important part of her career, appearing at Welsh National Opera as Countess Le nozze di Figaro, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni and Fiordiligi Così fan tutte and, most recently, Aspasia in Mitridate at Garsington Opera which prompted Alexandra Coghlan to write in The i “Elizabeth Watts is an immaculate Aspasia, stopping time in Act III’s ravishing “Pallid ombre”.
Elizabeth regularly appears at the BBC Proms, most recently with Sakari Oromo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2025 Proms singing Bliss Beatitude, with past appearances including Mahler Symphony No. 2, also with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo; Ravel L’enfant et les sortilèges with the LSO and Simon Rattle; Schubert songs with the BBC Philharmonic and John Storgårds and Beethoven arias with the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze.
Elizabeth won the 2007 Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition as well as the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier Award. She is a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and was awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in February 2011.
FOR USE IN THE 2025/26 SEASON
This biography should not be edited without permission from Maxine Robertson Management.