LOUISE CRANE
Mezzo-Soprano
Since making her debuts at Glyndebourne, English National Opera and the
Belgium Royal Opera, Louise Crane has established herself as one of this
country's most sought-after and versatile mezzo sopranos.
She studied at the Guildhall, gaining her AGSM Diploma, and subsequently won awards from Clonter Opera Trust and the Peter Moores Foundation, as well as a college scholarship, to study at the RNCM. Whilst there she sang Rosette Manon and Dorabella Cosi fan tutte. After a season with Glyndebourne Festival Opera Louise won the Peter Stuyvestant Foundation Scholarship to the National Opera Studio where she completed her studies.
Some early engagements were Don Giovanni with Opera Factory (filmed for Channel 4), and Dialogues des Carmelites for the Opèra de Lyon (recorded by Virgin Classics), since when her many & varied roles have included Mother Goose The Rake’s Progress at the Aldeburgh Festival and for Opera East at the Iford Festival; Giovanna Ernani, Ismene The Siege of Corinth, Death Le Rossignol and Smaragdi Francesca da Rimini for Chelsea Opera Group; Florence Pike Albert Herring, Third Lady The Magic Flute and Mistress Quickly Falstaff for English Touring Opera; Marcellina The Marriage of Figaro and Third Lady for European Chamber Opera; Flora La Traviata for Mid-Wales Opera and the Irish Operatic Repertory Company, Jocasta Oedipus Rex and Filipyevna Eugene Onegin for Oxford University Opera; The Sorceress Dido and Aeneas for Palace Opera. She made her debut with English National Opera in Jonathan Harvey’s Inquest of Love and subsequently took part in the opera’s revival at the Brussels Opera.
Increasingly in demand for concert engagements at home and abroad, Louise has broadcast Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, appeared on Friday Night is Music Night and toured with the Basque Symphony Orchestra of Spain and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. She has recorded extracts from Handel’s Messiah for Classic FM and performed the same work in Britain and the Far East. She has sung the B Minor Mass in Salisbury Cathedral, Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Bath Abbey, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Verdi’s Requiem, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater (broadcast for the BBC Radio 3) and Elgar’s Light of Life under Stephen Cleobury at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge and A Child of Our Time at Warwick University. Her extensive repertoire further includes the Missa Solemnis, The Dream of Gerontius, Janácek’s Glagolithic Mass, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Second Symphony and Eighth Symphony and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater (performed at Snape Maltings). She has sung Berlioz L’Enfance du Christ in Hungary with Howard Williams and the Pécs Hungarian Symphony Orchestra and has sung Carmen and Offenbach programmes at the Barbican and Birmingham Symphony Halls.
Louise was a member of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, singing The Countess The Count of Luxembourg, The Fairy Queen Iolanthe, Buttercup and Hebe HMS Pinafore, Ruth and Edith The Pirates of Penzance at the Savoy Theatre, and on tour in Britain and the USA.
Enjoying a long and regular association with Opera della Luna, Louise’s twelve roles with the company include Alice Lucia di Lammermoor, Peep Bo/Katisha The Mikado, Buttercup HMS Pinafore & Orestes La Belle Helene on tour, at the Covent Garden Festival and for a season at London’s Bridewell Theatre. She is a regular guest soloist at the annual International Gilbert & Sullivan Fesitval at Buxton Opera House where she has sung Tessa The Gondoliers, Hebe, the title role in Iolanthe and Ruth. She has once again played Hebe in Raymond Gubbay’s production of HMS Pinafore at the Barbican Centre, Birmingham Symhony Hall and Manchester's Bridgewater Hall. Further performances include Flora in Co-Opera’s production of La Traviata in Dublin and Barbados for the Holder’s Festival, Praskovia The Merry Widow and Minerva Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera Holland Park.
Louise appears as a guest artist with Impropera, giving regular performances in London's West End and King's Place as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe. Louise played Juno in Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera della Luna at the Iford Arts Music Festival, and on tour in the UK.
She is a singing teacher at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and also runs vocal workshops for choirs and trains business people in the art of presentation and use of vocal skills. Louise has recently been employed by English National Opera to coach actress Andi Osho in her live performance of Nessun Dorma on BBC’s Comic Relief.