Pamela Helen Stephen

Mezzo-soprano

• Biography
• Reviews
• Repertoire
• Photos

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  Pamela Helen Stephen studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, at the Opera Theater Center at Aspen, Colorado with Herta Glaz, and in Toronto with Patricia Kern.

  Highly regarded as a versatile singer and a vivid actress, she has performed with many of the world’s greatest conductors including André Previn, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Ed Gardner, Richard Hickox, Sir Richard Armstrong and Sir Simon Rattle. She has sung with Royal Opera Covent Garden, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Edinburgh, City of London, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, St. Endellion and Wexford Festivals, Opera Ireland, Lyric Theatre Singapore, Batignano Festival, Los Angeles Opera, Spoleto Festival, Opera Australia and in Lisbon, Ludwigsburg, Paris and Amsterdam.

  Pamela Helen Stephen has a large concert repertoire and has appeared with London Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, BBC National Orchestra Wales, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Konzerthausorkester, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester, Berlin, Bamberger Symphoniker, Prague Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, in Vienna, Tokyo, Berlin, Lisbon, The Hague, Dallas, Montreux, Brisbane, Sydney, Prague, Edinburgh and in London including several Promenade concerts.

  She has made over 30 recordings including Phoebe The Yeomen of the Guard (Mackerras), Cherubino Le Nozze di Figaro (Gardiner), Child L’enfant et les sortilèges (Previn) and Second Niece Peter Grimes, Sonya War & Peace, Desideria The Saint of Bleecker Street, Nancy Albert Herring, Angelica A Poisoned Kiss, Kate Owen Wingrave and several Haydn Masses for Chandos with Collegium Musicum 90 (all with Hickox).

  Recent and future highlights include recordings of Ariadne auf Naxos and Szymanowski Stabat Mater (with Edward Gardner) for Chandos, Delius A Mass of Life at the Edinburgh International Festival with Sir Andrew Davis, Tippett A Child of Our Time and a concert performance of the role of Auntie Peter Grimes (with Vladimir Jurowski) with the LPO, Suzuki Madame Butterfly and Mrs Disney The Perfect American for English National Opera, Hecuba in Les Troyens for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the title roles in Giulio Cesare and Dido and Aeneas for Opera North, and the role of Annina Der Rosenkavalier with the CBSO.

  Pamela Helen Stephen is represented worldwide by Ben Rayfield at Rayfield Allied.
  This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.

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  • Dido (Dido and Aeneas), Opera North
    Grand Theatre, Leeds (February 2013)

    Pamela Helen Stephen’s heartbreaking Dido, utterly devoid of tragedy-queen histrionics.

    Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times

    Pamela Helen Stephen sings Dido nobly.

    Richard Morrison, The Times

    Pamela Helen Stephen made an impassioned Queen of Carthage.

    Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph

    Pamela Helen Stephen’s sumptuously sung Queen of Carthage.

    Alfred Hickling, The Guardian

    Pamela Helen Stephen’s painfully truthful Dido.

    Andrew Clark, Financial Times

    Pamela Helen Stephen distils a touching Dido.

    Martin Dreyer, Opera

    [Pamela Helen Stephen's] Dido brings to the fore the singer's vocal strengths. There was a rich, creamy quality to her singing, the phrasing was supple and she imbued the English text with meaning. Dido's Act l aria "Ah, Belinda I am pressed with torment" overlaid with grief and sorrow. "When I am laid in earth" was delivered with a sense of quiet dignity and resignation that I found very moving.

    George Mogridge, Opera Britannia

    Stephen conveys desperation and her condition as a victim of circumstances with great skill, her voice full of amour, then deep and gentle as she moves towards the inevitable suicide, her life meaningless… Stephen’s rendition of the Lament is properly moving.

    Richard Wilcocks, bachtrack.com

  • Suzuki (Madam Butterfly, Puccini), English National Opera/Oleg Caetani
    (May 2012)

    Pamela Helen Stephen and John Fanning head a strong supporting cast

    Graham Rogers, The Stage

    They received excellent support as well, especially from the fantastic Pamela Helen Stephen as Butterfly's maid Suzuki

    Paul Kilbey, BachTrack.com

    Pamela Helen Stephen makes the maid Suzuki a force to be reckoned with

    Nick Kimberley, London Evening Standard

  • Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Opera North
    January 2012

    It was a pleasure to welcome back Pamela Helen Stephen to this company with which she had such success in L’Etoile and other opera a few years ago. Her Cesare was a sensitive portrayal, admirably sung

    Michael Kennedy, Opera

    [The singers] put across these wonderful numbers with admirable musicality and often heartbreaking poignancy.Indeed, several will long live in my memory. They include…Pamela Helen Stephen’s audaciously-nuanced delivery of Caesar’s arias — a gentle interpretation that suggests not a conqueror but a vulnerable boy afflicted with Hamlet-like intimations of mortality.

    Richard Morrison, The Times

    In a strong cast, Pamela Helen Stephen convinced as a rough, tough Caesar, her debut in this elusive role.

    Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

    Pamela Helen Stephen's austere, weary Cesare…Stephen sings with gravity and grace

    Anna Picard, The Independent

    Pamela Helen Stephen is always a musical and accomplished Caesar

    Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times

    Pamela Helen Stephen's Cesare is a dour soldier with mud on his boots; yet her...tone softens delectably as she becomes caught in the crossfire between military and amorous conquest.

    Alfred Hickling, The Guardian

    the young Pamela Helen Stephen readily meets the dramatic demands of the score

    David Denton, Yorkshire Post

    The title role of Cesare was taken by mezzo-soprano Pamela Helen Stephen who proved herself a convincing male impersonator and managed to display the required gravitas and nobility, in spite of the muddy coat!...the second half of the evening saw Ms Stephen really coming into her own, dispatching the rapid runs in “Al lampo dell’armi” with impressive virtuosity and flair (what a pity that aria was cut after the A section) and offering an elegant and subtly nuanced “Aure, deh per pietà”.

    Faye Courtney, Opera Britannia

    Pamela Helen Stephen impresses as a pensive, amorous Caesar.

    George Hall, The Stage

    Pamela Helen Stephen excels in a rather more serious trouser role as Cesare, dramatically focussed, vocally authoritative, poised between assurance and arrogance.

    Ron Simpson, WhatsOnStage.com

    As Cesare, mezzo-soprano Pamela Helen Stephen captured a masculinity which made her role just that bit more believable.

    Laura Kate Wilson, BachTrack.com

    Cesare, soberly and impressively portrayed by Pamela Helen Stephen

    Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk

  • Weinberg’s The Passenger, English National Opera (UK premiere)
    September 2011

    The large ensemble cast, including Julia Sporsen, Pamela Helen Stephen and Rebecca de Pont Davies, gave their heartfelt best.

    Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian

  • The Return of Ulysses, English National Opera
    Coliseum, London

    Pamela Helen Stephen is an inspired choice for Penelope, playing the role as a woman frozen in indecision, stifling her sexual need, and at the same time holding up magnificently under the constant, close-in exposure to which the show subjects her.

    Michael White, The Telegraph

    Pamela Helen Stephen is the only Penelope I can imagine…she sings to ravishing effect.

    Michael Tanner, The Spectator

    Sung crisply, viciously and seductively...Pamela Helen Stephen reveals the fury behind Penelope's passivity.

    Anna Picard, The Independent

    Pamela Helen Stephen, exploiting raw chest-timbres to convey Penelope’s anguish, presents a stunning depiction of a besieged woman refusing to extinguish hope or relinquish dignity.

    Richard Morrison, The Times

    As the grieving Penelope, Pamela Helen Stephen was remarkable; all too credible in her exploration of loss, bold in physicality.

    Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

    Particularly special [is] Pamela Helen Stephen’s Penelope, worn out by endless waiting and her importunate suitors.

    George Hall, The Stage

    Pamela Helen Stephen sings with ardour and style as a Desperate Housewife of a Penelope.

    Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph

    Pamela Helen Stephen and Tom Randle are quite extraordinary in [the] final scene. You could take away the music and they would still break your heart.

    Edward Seckerson, The Independent

    The very beginning set the bar high, though, with Pamela Helen Stephen's astonishingly honest opening outpouring of sorrow.

    Igor Toronyi-Lalic, TheArtDesk.com

  • Faust, English National Opera
    Coliseum, London

    Moving into new vocal territory… Pamela Helen Stephen's rampant Dame Martha [and the rest of the singers] all rise to their challenges.

    George Hall, The Guardian 20 October 2010

    Shining in smaller roles…Pamela Helen Stephen is affecting as Marthe.

    David Gutman, The Stage, 20 September 2010

  • Three Choirs Festival 2010 - Elgar, The Kingdom
    August 2010

    I enjoyed Pamela Helen Stephens’ contribution. Her tone was firm and her words were clear. From where I was seated, about half way back, it seemed that her use of vibrato was judicious and effective and she seemed to have no trouble in projecting her voice into the big acoustic of the cathedral. She sang her line in the Part II duet well and I thought that her narrative solo at the start of Part IV was very effective and also involving without over-emphasis.

    John Quinn, Seen and Heard International

• Pamela Helen Stephen’s Opera Repertoire

  ARMSTRONG (C.)

  • Anna

  BERKELEY (L.)

  • Ruth

  BERLIOZ

  • Les Troyens (Hecuba)

  BIZET

  • Carmen

  BRITTEN

  • Semele (Juno)
  • Albert Herring (Nancy)
  • Gloriana (Countess of Essex)
  • Owen Wingrave (Kate)
  • Peter Grimes (Auntie, Second Niece)

  CHABRIER

  • L'Étoile (Lazuli)

  GERHARD

  • The Duenna (Donna Clara)

  GILBERT & SULLIVAN

  • Patience (Angela)
  • The Yeoman of the Guard (Phoebe)

  GLASS

  • The Perfect American (Mrs Disney)

  HANDEL

  • Giulio Cesare (Sesto)

  HUMPERDINCK

  • Hansel und Gretel (Hansel)

  JANÁČEK

  • Cunning Little Vixen (Fox)

  MASON

  • Playing Away (Cynthia)

  MASSENET

  • Cendrillon (Prince)

  MENOTTI

  • The Saint of Bleecker Street (Desideria)

  MOZART

  • Le Nozze di Figaro (Cherubino)
  • The Jewel Box (Composer)

  OFFENBACH

  • Les Contes D'Hoffmann (Nicklausse, Muse)

  PERI

  • Euridice (Dafne)

  PROKOFIEV

  • War & Peace (Sonya)

  PUCCINI

  • Suzuki (Madame Butterfly)

  PURCELL

  • Dido and Aeneas (Dido, Second Witch)

  SAVOY

  • The Yeomen of the Guard (Phoebe)

  STRAUSS

  • Ariadne auf Naxos (Composer)
  • Salome (Page)
  • Der Rosenkavalier (Octavian)

  VERDI

  • Rigoletto (Maddalena)

  WALTON

  • The Bear (Madame Popova)

  Pamela Helen Stephen’s Concert Repertoire

  BACH

  • Magnificat

  BEETHOVEN

  • 9th Symphony
  • Mass in C

  BERLIOZ

  • L'Enfance du Christ
  • Nuits d'Été

  BRITTEN

  • Spring Symphony
  • Phaedra

  CANTELOUBE

  • Songs of the Auvergne

  ELGAR

  • Dream of Gerontius
  • Sea Pictures

  HAYDN

  • Nelson Mass
  • Scena di Berenice
  • Harmoniemesse

  KAGEL

  • Ein Brief

  MAHLER

  • 8th Symphony
  • Des Knaben Wunderhorn

  MENDELSSOHN

  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Hymn of Praise

  MOZART

  • Requiem

  ROSSINI

  • Stabat Mater

  SCHUBERT

  • Mass in E flat

  SCHUMANN

  • Requiem for Mignon

  TIPPETT

  • Child of Our Time

• Photos

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    Photographer credit: Benjamin Ealovega

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  • 
    Photographer credit: Benjamin Ealovega

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    Photographer credit: Benjamin Ealovega

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    Photographer credit: Benjamin Ealovega

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    Photographer credit: Benjamin Ealovega

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    Photographer credit: Benjamin Ealovega

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