SALLY MATTHEWS - Soprano

27 year old Sally Matthews is the winner of the 1999 Kathleen Ferrier Award. She studied with Cynthia Jolly and Johanna Peters and completed the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2000. She is currently studying with Paul Farrington and is a member of The Royal Opera Vilar Young Artist programme.

In January 2001 she made her Royal Opera House debut as Nannetta Falstaff under Bernard Haitink. Hugh Canning (The Sunday Times) wrote “a vocally entrancing Nannetta, spinning ravishing, high pianissimi in her fairy song...her creamy, lyrical soprano has huge potential”. Last season she returned to the Royal Opera House as a Flowermaiden Parsifal for Sir Simon Rattle and took part in Bernard Haitink’s Farewell Gala concerts singing Susanna in Act II of Le Nozze di Figaro. This season, in her second year as a member of the Royal Opera Vilar Young Artist programme, she will sing Pamina Die Zaubeflöte and Iris Semele. Other future plans include for the Royal Opera House, as a guest artist include Sophie Werther, conducted by Antonio Pappano. Next year she will make her debut for Glyndebourne Festival Opera as Lauretta Gianni Schicchi in a new production conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

Other operatic appearances have included Fiordiligi Cosi fan tutte for Grange Park Opera and Elisa Il Re Pastore for the Classical Opera Company at the Linbury Theatre and on tour in the UK.

Sally Matthews has appeared with the Orchestra of St. John’s, the Philharmonia, the English Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She made her BBC Proms debut in 2001 singing Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and other recent appearances include her debut with the London Symphony Orchestra under Boulez singing Debussy’s Martyre de Saint Sebastien, Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with the London Philharmonic under Kurt Masur, Carmina Burana with the Royal Philharmonic under Daniele Gatti, performances of Messiah with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate with City of London Sinfonia and Richard Hickox, Haydn’s Creation with the Hallé Orchestra under Mark Elder an appearance at the Barbican’s Mostly Mozart Festival singing excerpts from Le Nozze di Figaro with Joseph Swensen and the Academy of St.Martin’s in the Fields and Brahms’ Requiem with the BBC Symphony under Walter Weller.

Future plans with orchestra include for the London Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s Requiem with Franz Welser-Möst, Britten’s Peter Grimes including concerts at Lincoln Center New York and Elgar’s Apostles , Mahler’s Symphony No.8 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Kent Nagano at the Philharmonie and Beethoven Symphony No.9 and Tippett’s Child of our Time with BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Richard Hickox. She has also recently been selected by the BBC for their New Generation Artists scheme which will include lunchtime concerts at the Wigmore Hall, studio recordings, and appearances with the BBC Orchestras throughout the UK for a period of two years.

She has appeared frequently as a recitalist and has worked with pianists John Cameron, with whom she gave a recital at the Wigmore Hall, Eugene Asti, Simon Lepper and Iain Burnside.

VILAR YOUNG ARTISTS GALA, Royal Opera, July 2002
Sally Matthews is a lyric soprano with unfailingly beautiful tone, and she's a real creature of the stage. Her Jilly Cooper-style Adina in riding habit for Elisir d'amore was hilarious, and she stopped the show with Bellini's Juliet in 'Oh, quante volte' and the duet 'Si, fuggire'. Perfectly lovely.

Rodney Milnes, The Times

Press reviews:

Her creamy tone made her an ideal Zerlina, and her Adina was most distinguished too. Her Giulietta, with ideally floated pianissimos and long bel canto line, was the evening's vocal highlight.

Martin Kettle, The Guardian

MOZART Cosi fan tutte (Fiordiligi), Grange Park Opera, June/July 2001
…but it is Sally Matthews as Fiordiligi, who emerges as the starriest of all. She is pure and powerful, and deeply moving.
Edward Greenfield, The Guardian

Increasingly beguiling - in low register too - was Sally Matthews's Fiordiligi, her duets with Dorabella and Ferrando enchanting.
The Independent

…but the singer among them was Sally Matthews, a Fiordiligi whose 'Per pieta' was the vocal delight of the season.
Opera Now.

VERDI Falstaff (Nannetta), Royal Opera conducted by Bernard Haitink, January 2001
The other star performance was that of the 25-year old English soprano Sally Matthews, who jumped in at short notice for an indisposed colleague with tremendous confidence and panache as a vocally entrancing Nannetta, spinning ravishing, high pianissimi in her fairy song and her heavenly duets with Steve Davislim's handsome-voiced Fenton….she is delectably pretty and her creamy, lyrical soprano has huge potential. With careful nurturing, Covent Garden might have its Kiri Te Kanawa for the new millennium on the books.
Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times

…a highly promising British soprano, Sally Matthews, making an auspicious Covent Garden debut as Nannetta. Matthews's promise is immense.
Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph

Sally Matthews….won a big ovation for some lovely singing, very light of voice, but spun on an exquisite silvery thread.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times

…she floats (the music) with spine-tingling beauty.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian

…hers is a voice that has no rights to be as rich, rounded and beautiful as it is in one so young. An impressive Royal Opera debut.
Warwick Thompson, Metro

Sally Matthews…proved herself with a bright and fresh Nannetta.

Rodney Milnes, The Times

It was a wonderful debut; her high notes had the purest shimmer and her acting was utterly convincing.
Anna Picard, The Independent on Sunday

PUCCINI Gianni Schicchi (Lauretta), Guildhall School, March 2000
…Sally Matthews (Lauretta) sang Oh mio babbino caro absolutely straight, innocent of false, kittenish charm or schmalz - perfectly lovely.
Rodney Milnes, The Times

…but it was the audience, more than Rinuccio, that fell in love with 25-year-old Sally Matthews. She was a sensation. Her beautiful rendering of 'O mio babbino caro' was more than worthy of the professional stage and was genuinely moving.
Opera Now

Ferrier Awards Final/Wigmore Hall/April 1999
Matthews, alone of the finalists, earned it [first place] by fusing superb vocal grooming with real performance skills. Her stage presence is quietly assured, expressing a certain rapt quality rare in such a young singer
Hilary Finch, The Times