Felicity Palmer

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Felicity Joan Palmer, CBE (born 6 April 1944), is an English mezzo-soprano (soprano until 1983) and professor of singing. Her operatic career has taken her to major opera houses in the UK, U.S. and Europe.

Biography

Palmer was born in Cheltenham, England. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music in London and under Marianne Schech's guidance at the Munich College for Music and Theatre. In April 1970, she won first prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship.

She made her operatic debut in 1971 as Dido in Dido and Æneas with the Kent Opera. In 1973, she made her U.S. debut with the Houston Grand Opera, and in 1975 debuted with English National Opera (ENO). She has since performed regularly at the world's major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York; the Lyric Opera of Chicago; the San Francisco Opera; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; La Scala, Milan; the Deutsche Oper Berlin; the Opéra Bastille in Paris; and the Glyndebourne and Wexford Festivals.

She is a professor at the Royal College of Music in London, and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in November 1993.

Palmer has also performed with Scottish Opera, Opera North and Welsh National Opera (WNO), and has performed and recorded Gilbert and Sullivan operas, as Katisha in The Mikado(ENO and WNO), Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard (WNO) and Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore (WNO). She recently reprised her role of Katisha in English National Opera's much revived production of The Mikado at the London Coliseum.

In 2003, she performed the role of Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (opposite Sir Thomas Allen in the title role) when it was presented at the ROH. Incidentally, Sweeney holds the distinction of being the first — and to this point, only — musical that the ROH has ever presented.) She sang the role on the radio broadcast by BBC Radio 3. Another equally successful foray into the world of 20th century opera, was her appreanace as Widow Begbick in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with the Lyric Opera of Chicago (opposite Timothy Nolen and Catherine Malfitano) in 1998.

In 2007, she sang the role of Madame de Croissy in Dialogues of the Carmelites at the Lyric Opera of Chicago — the premiere production of the work at that house. She sang this role with English National Opera and has recorded it as part of the Chandos Opera in English series. She also appeared at the ROH as the Marquise de Berkenfeld in La fille du régiment and repeated the role in the 2008 production at Metropolitan Opera. In 2008 she sang in the Metropolitan Opera productions of Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten and The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky. The same year she created the role of Josefa Miranda in Peter Eötvös' opera Love and Other Demons.