Linda Richardson
Professor of Singing
Soprano Linda Richardson’s extensive career spans over forty operatic roles for major companies in the UK and abroad. After completing studies at the Royal Northern College of Music and the National Opera Studio, Linda became a Company Principal for the English National Opera. She has also performed principal roles for UK-based Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North, Opera Holland Park, Garsington Opera, English Touring Opera, and international companies and houses in Barcelona, Amsterdam, Nantes, Dubai, and Venice. Recent seasons include Violetta in La traviata, Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly, the title role in Anna Bolena, Amaltea in Mosè in Egitto, and Elvira in I puritani. She has sung with various international conductors including Bernard Haitink, Edo de Waart, Sir Mark Elder, Danielle Rustioni, Libor Pešek, Carol Rizzi, Shao Chia Lu, and Martin André. In 2020/21, Linda will reprise Anna Bolena in London and Scotland, in 2022 she will perform the role of Donna Anna for Welsh National Opera in their upcoming production of Don Giovanni.
No stranger to concerts and festivals, Linda has appeared in concert with various orchestras, including the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, The Halle, London Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, the Urtrect Radio Kamerorkest, Internationales Kammermusikfestival Nürnberg, and Festival De La Vezere, France, among others. Other appearances also include performances in collaboration for the Solti-Te Kanawa Academia with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and for the Jose Carreras Gala Concert at Royal Albert Hall with Jose Carreras.
Media work includes multiple performances for the BBC both on radio and TV, and CD recordings of Un Ballo in Maschera with Dennis O’Neil and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Chandos), Summer’s End: The Poems of Margaret Buckle, joined by Ian Partridge with narration by Niamh Cusack and Gabriel Woolf (Meridian), as well as an upcoming solo debut CD of soprano arias with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London (Chandos). Her performance as Annie in Jonathan Dove’s debut TV opera When She Died (in memory of Princess Diana) on Channel 4 was watched by 900,000 viewers, a record viewership for a contemporary opera broadcast.
Her reviews, too numerous to list, include ‘. . . . commanding, superb, wonderful, exquisite, powerful and affecting performance, irresistible, moving, bravo!, scrupulously well sung, poignant and tender, faultless, gorgeous, radiant, charming, lovely phrasing, every musical detail in place, star of the evening, impressive, best of all . . . ‘
Always willing to guide training voices, Linda has lead masterclasses and performance workshops at English National Opera, Opera North, Clonter Opera, as well as adjudicating the Oncken Song Prize for the Royal Northern College of Music. Linda continues to serve on various opera audition and performance panels, and also returns regularly to the RNCM teach and to give performance masterclasses in vocal performance.
Linda holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Advance Performance from the Royal Northern College of Music, and upon graduation, joined the National Opera Studio. While at RNCM she won the prestigious Frederic Cox Award for Singing, was awarded the Peter Stuyvesant Scholarship, and won scholarships from The Countess of Munster Trust and the Peter Moores Foundation. During her training, she was selected to sing in masterclasses for Sherrill Milnes at RNCM, Thomas Hampson and Brigitte Fassbäender at the Brereton International Symposium, and Ilena Cotrubas at Britten-Pears/Aldebrugh.
