“Startling, inventive and compelling” (The Independent), Elizabeth Atherton is equally at home on the opera stage or the concert platform. Her versatility as a musician and as an actress means that she has sung roles ranging from Monteverdi, Handel and Mozart through to Verdi, Bizet and Britten, and she had the roles of Eurydice in Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s opera The Corridor and Medea The Cure created for her to considerable critical acclaim.
Having won several prestigious prizes including the Maggie Teyte Prize, Elizabeth’s debut was as Helena in Midsummer Night’s Dream for English Touring Opera. She subsequently became an Associate Artist at Welsh National Opera for three years, performing roles including Mozart’s Countess and Pamina, and has since gone on to become a regular performer at Opera North enjoying much success with roles including Mozart’s Fiordiligi and Britten’s Governess.
In concert, Elizabeth has worked with such eminent conductors as Sir Richard Hickox, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Antonio Pappano, Sir Neville Mariner, Pierre Boulez, Carlo Rizzi, Harry Christophers and Thierry Fischer. She appears frequently with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and other highlights include performances with the BBC Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Orchestre de Paris, Hong Kong Philharmonic, The Sixteen and Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Recent and future engagements include Meni in Thomas Adès’ new opera The Exterminating Angel at the Royal Opera House, Gerhilde in Die Walküre in Singapore, her role debut as Leonore Fidelio for Longborough Opera, a return to Opera North as Donna Elvira, a reprise of the roles of Eurydice and Medea for the Holland Festival, song recitals with Roger Vignoles, Barber’s Knoxville with the Halle and the RLPO, Saul in Boston with Harry Christophers and the Handel and Haydn Society, song cycles by Dutilleux under Julian Anderson, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony under Ryan Wigglesworth with the BBC NOW and also with the BBCSO, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, Schoenberg's Second String Quartet and Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 with the London Sinfonietta, Stravinsky's Threni with the LPO under Vladimir Jurowski, Handel’s Messiah with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and concerts with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Ulster Orchestra under Rafael Payare, RSNO under Laurence Cummings, RLPO under James MacMillan, and St Paul Chamber Orchestra under Paul McCreesh.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Leeds Town Hall (March 2019)
Soprano Elizabeth Atherton soared with beauty and clarity above the orchestral textures.
Geoffrey Mogridge, Ilkley Gazette
Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, London Sinfonietta
Royal Festival Hall (November 2018)
So it was with this moving performance from the London Sinfonietta and its conductor and co-founder, David Atherton, with the soprano Elizabeth Atherton as the grieving mother, her face expressing pain and sorrow from the work’s first note to the last. …Atherton’s control of dynamics and the soprano’s beautifully tender lamenting stopped any fidgets. The last two movements, sprinkled with phrases that pierce the heart and an adrenaline shot of A major, left us spellbound.
Geoff Brown, The Times****
Elizabeth Atherton’s lustrous soprano conveyed both pathos and dignity, and had the power to match the brass-capped climax when it arrived. …there was plenty to savour in the two following songs, especially Elizabeth Atherton’s infinitely touching delivery of them. She sang with a keening intensity, helped by just enough vibrato to suggest the throb of pain but never becoming an unwelcome ‘beat’ in the voice, and with expert control of the longer-breathed lines. …her tone still managed to give a voice to every grieving mother and child.
Roy Westbrook, bachtrack*****
Webern’s Drei Lieder, London Sinfonietta
King’s Place (March 2018)
Elizabeth Atherton gave us an Isolde in miniature, singing with clarity of diction and immediacy that meant nothing was wasted.
Benjamin Poore, bachtrack****
Mozart’s Don Giovanni
Opera North (February 2018)
… Elizabeth Atherton’s touchingly sung Elvira…
Richard Morrison, The Times
Elizabeth Atherton, returning as Donna Elvira and making the most of her dramatic opening aria
Andrew Hirst, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Elizabeth Atherton … projects overwhelming sadness before breathing fire and fury into Elvira’s magnificent Mi tradi quell’ alma ingrate
Geoffrey Mogridge, Ilkley Gazette
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
BBC National Orchestra of Wales (January 2018)
There was a classy quartet of soloists [including] Elizabeth Atherton
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
Elizabeth Atherton and Clara Mouriz both sang with attractive roundness of tone and no threat of excessive showiness
Rohan Shotton, Bachtrack
Beethoven's Fidelio
Longborough Festival Opera (June 2017)
a convincing Fidelio in Elizabeth Atherton. Her neutral sound worked well for Act 1, making her vocal bloom after the reunion all the more satisfying, and her acting combined sharply observed purpose and nervousness
Peter Reed, Opera Magazine
… some superb performances from the cast… Simon Thorpe is full of rage and Wagnerian power as a maimed Pizarro, matched by Elizabeth Atherton’s fervent, resourceful Leonore.
Rebecca Franks, The Times
Vocally, this Fidelio has a strong team of singers, gratifyingly uniform in the delivery of solo and ensemble numbers. Elizabeth Atherton as Fidelio/Leonore was fully believable and luminously-voiced, with a warm and glorious top end which was especially notable in her recitative and aria “Abscheulicher! wo eilst du hin?”, which also drew some fine horn playing from the pit.
David Truslove, Bachtrack
Elizabeth Atherton sings stylishly as Leonora and handles the male “disguise” (actually green unisex overalls) as well as most.
Stephen Walsh, The Arts Desk
Elizabeth Atherton is a delight to listen to as Fidelio – Florestan’s wife, who has joined the prison as a (male) jailer in order to rescue her husband – combining an assured tone with airy lightness.
Edward Bhesania, The Stage
Elizabeth Atherton is a sterling Leonore, presenting a forceful account of her big aria.
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph
She’s sung by Elizabeth Atherton with a fierce, concentrated integrity.
Richard Bratby, The Spectator
... a fine performance from both orchestra and singers, with Elizabeth Atherton a compelling Leonore.
David Lister, The Independent
All the principal singers have fine voices and are well cast. Elizabeth Atherton’s Fidelio is convincing as a tall, rangy boy, moving as a loving wife and seeker after justice; and utterly convincing in her portrayal.
Mel Cooper, Plays To See
Elizabeth Atherton engages with Leonore’s (Fidelio’s) nervous concentration superbly.
Peter Reed, Classical Source
Handel’s Saul
Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Symphony Hall (May 2015)
For the three other principal roles, Christophers wisely returned to the same singers featured on his recording: ... Elizabeth Atherton as a limpid Merab ... It would be hard to picture a more satisfying conclusion to these seasons of bicentennial programming.
Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe
Five principal soloists without a weak link or a dull moment. ... Evenly competent, or more properly, brilliant, describes the soloists, chorus, and orchestra. ... Elizabeth Atherton sang a very expressive Merab.
David Schulenberg, The Boston Musical Intelligencer
Anderson’s Shir Hashirim and Dutilleux’s Les Temps l’horloge
BBC National Orchestra of Wales (January 2016)
[Julian Anderson’s Shir Hashirim’s] balancing of the solo soprano’s expansively lyrical outpouring with the brilliant orchestral writing was always finely judged and the dramatic tension of the final part of the work delivered with much flair by Elizabeth Atherton.
... The serious yet witty playing with the passing of time and ultimately a philosophical depth [in Dutilleux’s Le Temps l’horloge] were realised with much sensitivity by Rophé and BBCNOW, with Atherton again excelling. ... Here and in the Anderson, we were treated to highly accomplished singing.
Rian Evans, The Guardian ****
These are model compositions, matched here by some wonderful singing by Elizabeth Atherton.
Stephen Walsh, The Arts Desk *****
With the exceptional playing of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under conductor, Pascal Rophé, together with the lovely musical intelligence of soprano, Elizabeth Atherton, the work glowed with a vigour belying the advanced years of its composer. Not a note is wasted in Le temps l’horloge (2006-9), nor a vocal inflection or colour ill-judged.
...
[In Shir Hashrim], Atherton and musicians were luminous in conveying this seductive score, with its lush colouration and trailing vocal melismas. Now shimmering from within a lake of rippling reflections, now a comet with a fiery, harmonic tail, the soprano was by turns semi-engulfed by and ringing clearly above Anderson’s rich, surging textures. The effect was both magical and strongly rigorous...
Steph Power, Wales Arts Review
Soprano Elizabeth Atherton joined the proceedings on two occasions, beginning with Julian Anderson’s setting of words from the Biblical Song of Songs, Shir Hashirim. ... The opening was particularly sumptuous: dreamy, heady, ecstatic, an intoxicating atmosphere that persisted even when things dissolved into a more gestural melée. Atherton’s fittingly sweet voice ... her melismas floating high above the orchestra, Anderson coating them in shifting shades of colour.
...
Articulating lines of Tardieu, Desnos and Baudelaire, Elizabeth Atherton’s voice was the constant in material that struck an impressive balance between clarity and obfuscation, mischievously slipping just out of reach. Following a high point in the brief third movement – dark and unsettlingly complex, yet utterly gorgeous – Dutilleux introduced a new assertiveness into the soprano writing, Atherton signing off both the cycle and the evening with an amusing brusque outburst, melody finally breaking down entirely at Baudelaire’s adjuration to the world: “Get drunk!”
Simon Cummings, bachtrack
[Elizabeth Atherton's] French diction was excellent.
Paul Corfield Godfrey, Seen and Heard International
Birtwistle’s The Cure & The Corridor Double Bill
Aldeburgh Festival, Linbury Theatre (June 2015)
It’s Eurydice, however, who grabs the attention. In Atherton’s mesmerising portrayal she is a sardonic, even embittered woman…
Richard Morrison, The Times
Atherton seemed to have the perfect luminous instrument for Birtwistle’s expressionistic lines.
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times
Elizabeth Atherton’s singing finds a glinting radiance in both pieces.
Richard Fairman, The Financial Times
Elizabeth Atherton is both a wonderfully realistic Euridice and a fine Medea.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
All praise… to the superb… Elizabeth Atherton (Eurydice and Medea).
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph
Each piece, taken from Ovid, has two singers, the equally superb tenor Mark Padmore and soprano Elizabeth Atherton.
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
Each scena could stand alone, but each benefits from the other, and from the shared thread of commanding performances. The soprano Elizabeth Atherton sings her roles with abandon: knowing and sarcastic as Woman; distant and lonely as Eurydice; a Kundry and a Salome compressed in a cauldron of erotic enchantment as Medea.
David Allen, The New York Times
Moses und Aron
Welsh National Opera (June 2014)
The supporting roles (and few of them have much scope to emerge as individuals) were well sung and sharply characterised; Elizabeth Atherton’s sportswear-clad Young Maiden stood out.
Richard Bratby, Birmingham Post ****
The Yellow Wallpaper
BBCNOW (October 2013)
Elizabeth Atherton delivered a performance of instrumental clarity and perfect articulation.
Rian Evans, The Guardian ****
Brahm’s German Requiem
Royal Northern Sinfonia (September 2013)
Under Thomas Zehetmair’s conducting, orchestra, chorus and two excellent soloists – bass-baritone Matthew Brook and soprano Elizabeth Atherton – did full justice to a work which betrays a winning lightness of touch.
David Whetstone, The Journal
Gloria / Ballad of the Heroes
Oxford Bach Choir (December 2012)
The soprano Elizabeth Atherton deserves special praise for the gravitas she brought to Psalm 130, Ballad of Heroes and especially to the Poulenc.
Simon Collings, Oxford Times
Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony
BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Van Steen (November 2012)
...but it was Elizabeth Atherton who made her songs come alive, finding colours and tone to match the words' emotional tenor. In the penultimate poem, where the orchestration is at its most spare and telling, she found both ‘intimacy and anguish'.
Rian Evans, The Guardian
On This Island with Malcolm Martineau
Onyx Records (December 2011)
The soprano Elizabeth Atherton also struck up a wonderful rapport with her audience in Britten’s On this Island. Atherton’s voice is now not just a lush instrument but a superbly communicative one: she caught exactly the subtle moods – bittersweet, ironic or heartfelt – of Auden’s words and Britten’s early unfettered lyricism.
Richard Morrison, The Times
Elizabeth Atherton was lustrous and dramatic in On this Island.
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times
Elizabeth Atherton gives a musically alert and intelligent interpretation of another early work, the enchantingly fresh and youthful On this Island
Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph
Allan Clayton and Elizabeth Atherton give superb accounts of the declamatory Michelangelo Sonnets and the settings of Auden's On This Island respectively
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
the bright soprano of Elizabeth Atherton sings out the ‘florid music’ of Britten’s Auden settings in On this Island…Britten’s 15-year-old response to Dans les bois, irresistibly sung by Atherton.
BBC Music Magazine ****
Elizabeth Atherton’s Opera Repertoire
| ADÈS | The Exterminating Angel (Meni) |
|---|---|
| BEETHOVEN | Fidelio (Leonore) |
| BIRTWISTLE | The Corridor (Eurydice) |
| BIZET | Carmen (Micaela) |
| BRITTEN | Rape of Lucretia (Female Chorus) |
| GASSMANN | L’Opera Seria (La Stonatrilla) |
| GLUCK | Iphigénie en Tauride(Iphigénie) |
| HAAS | Morgen und Abend (Signe/Hebamme) |
| HANDEL | Alcina (Alcina) |
| HOLST | Savitri (Savitri) |
| MONTEVERDI | Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (Minerva) |
| MOZART | Idomeneo (Ilia) |
| PURCELL | Fairy Queen(Caroline) |
| RAVEL | L’heure Espagnole (Conception) |
| SCHOENBERG | Moses und Aron (Young Maiden) |
| VAUGHAN WILLIAMS | Riders to the Sea (Cathleen) |
| VERDI | Don Carlos (Thibault) |
| WAGNER | Gerhilde (Die Walküre)* |
| WEILL | Dreigroschenoper (Polly) |
| *Denotes role not yet performed |
Elizabeth Atherton’s Concert Repertoire
| ALFVEN | Symphony No. 4 |
|---|---|
| ANDERSON | Shir Hashirim |
| ANDRIESSEN | De stijl |
| BACH | Magnificat (1st and 2nd sopranos) |
| BARBER | Knoxville |
| BEETHOVEN | Ah, perfido! |
| BERG | Sieben frühe Lieder |
| BERLIOZ | Les nuits d’été |
| BIRTWISTLE | Nenia |
| BOULEZ | Le soleil des eaux |
| BOWDEN | A violence of gifts |
| BRAHMS | Requiem |
| BRITTEN | Les illuminations |
| COLL | Ceci n’est pas un concerto |
| DEBUSSY | Trois ballades de François Villon |
| DURUFLÉ | Requiem |
| DUTILLEUX | Le temps l’horloge |
| DVORAK | Stabat Mater |
| ELGAR | Coronation ode, op.44 |
| FAURÉ | Requiem |
| GORECKI | Symphony No. 3 |
| GOUNOD | Messe solonelle St. Cecile |
| HANDEL | Messiah |
| HASSE | Te deum |
| HAYDN | The creation |
| HOLT | The Yellow Wallpaper |
| JENKINS | The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace |
| KNUSSEN | Ocean de Terre |
| KODALY | Missa brevis |
| LISZT | Via crucis |
| MAHLER | Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs Symphony no. 4 |
| MENDELSSOHN | Elijah |
| MESSIAEN | La mort du nombre |
| MOZART | Requiem |
| PENDERECKI | St. Luke Passion |
| PERGOLESI | Magnificat |
| POULENC | Gloria |
| RACHMANINOV | Vocalise |
| RUTTER | Magnificat |
| SCHUBERT | Mass in E flat |
| SPEARE | The angels |
| STRAUSS | Vier Letzte Lieder |
| STRAVINSKY | Mass |
| SZYMANOWSKI | Stabat Mater |
| TIPPETT | A child of our time |
| VARESE | Offrandes |
| VAUGHAN WILLIAMS | "Sea" Symphony |
| VERDI | Requiem |
| VIVALDI | Gloria (1st and 2nd sopranos) |
| WIEGOLD | Perfume of the desert |
| ZEMLINSKY | Lyric Symphony |
Elizabeth Atherton’s Recital Repertoire
| Adès | Life story |
|---|---|
| Argento | Spring |
| Bennett | A garland for Marjory Fleming |
| Berg | Sieben frühe Lieder |
| Berkeley | Oh, lurcher-loving collier |
| Berlioz | Les nuits d’été |
| Bernstein | I hate music |
| Bingham | The shadow side of Joy Finzi |
| Bridge | Various songs |
| Britten | Les Illuminations |
| Butler | Prelude (for sop. & trumpet) |
| Chausson | Le temps des lilas |
| Debussy | Cinq Poëmes de Baudelaire |
| Delius | To the queen of my heart |
| Dove | Five Am’rous Sighs |
| Dowland | Weep you no more sad fountains |
| Dring | The cuckoo |
| Duparc | Extase |
| De Falla | Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas |
| Fauré | Le papillon et la fleur |
| Gurney | Sleep |
| Haydn | The mermaid's song |
| Hill | Philomel (for sop., rec., cello & pno) |
| Howells | Various songs |
| Ireland | Her song |
| Holloway | Wherever We May Be |
| Joubert | The rose is shaken in the wind (for sop. & recorder) |
| Lehmann | Various songs |
| Liszt | Im Rhein, im schönen Strome |
| Maconchy | Sun, moon and stars |
| Mahler | Frühlingsmorgen |
| Mozart | An Chloe |
| Pergolesi | Se tu m'ami |
| Poulenc | Banalités |
| Previn | Vocalise (for sop., cello & piano) |
| Purcell | Music for a while |
| Quilter | Now sleeps the crimson petal |
| Rachmaninov | A dream |
| Ravel | Cinq Poèmes Populaires Grecques |
| Roe | My boy Jack |
| Rossini | Duets: La regata Veneziana |
| Rushton | Palladas |
| Scarlatti | Sento nel core |
| Schönberg | Four Songs, Opus 2 |
| Schubert | An Sylvia |
| Schumann | Frauenliebe und –leben |
| Stevenson | Day is dune |
| Strauss | Vier Letzte Lieder |
| Tchaikovsky | None but the lonely heart |
| Walton | A Song for the Lord Mayor's Table |
| Warlock | Sleep |
| Webern | Eight Early Songs |
| Weill | Stolz (Die sieben Todsünden |
| Williamson | My bed is like a boat |
| Wolf | Auch kleine Dinge |
