Lynne Dawson

Lynne Dawson is established as one of Britain's most versatile and popular sopranos and enjoys a busy career which combines concerts and recitals with frequent recordings and opera productions.Lynne Dawson has sung with many of the world’s leading conductors including Giulini, Barenboim, Mehta, Ashkenazy, Gardiner, Chailly, Harnoncourt, Minkowski and Mackerras and has recorded for all the major labels. She now has over seventy CDs in her personal recording catalogue including Don Giovanni (EMI/ Norrington), Monteverdi's Orfeo (DG/Gardiner), Mozart Requiem (CBS/Giulini), Ariodante (DG/Minkowski), Mozart's Zaide (Harmonia Mundi/Goodwin) and the award-winning recording of Orff's Carmina Burana with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra / Blomstedt (Decca).  Recent releases include Mozart’s C-minor Mass (Erato/Christie), Handel’s L’Allegro (EMI/Nelson), the 2000 Gramophone Award-winning Lili Boulanger’s Faust et Hélène (Chandos/Tortelier), Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Harmonia Mundi/Jacobs), Handel’s Hercules (DG/Minkowski), “On this Island” a selection of English Songs (Hyperion/Martineau) and most recently a disc of Handel Arias with the Berliner Lautten-Compagney (Berlin Classics).

Lynne Dawson’s operatic roles have included Zdenka (Chatelet), Fiordiligi (Naples), Constanze (La Monnaie), Iphigenie en Aulide (Aix-en-Provence), Gluck's Orfeo (Nice and Barcelona), Amenaide in Rossini's Tancredi, Handel’s Cleopatra and Pamina at the State Opera in Berlin.  In the 1999/2000 season, Lynne Dawson created the role of Mama in the world première performances of Elliot Carter’s opera What Next? at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, followed by guest performances in Chicago and New York, conducted by Daniel Barenboim.  In 2001/02 she revived the role with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders in the presence of the composer, as well as expanding her operatic repertoire with her debut as Ann Truelove in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress in Sao Paolo, conducted by John Neschling.Lynne Dawson has appeared in concert all over the world with many of the world’s leading orchestras; highlights include Chabrier Ode à la musique with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Gardiner, Bach B-Minor Mass, Brahms and Mozart Requiems at La Scala, Shéhérazade at the Proms, Mozart Requiem and C-Minor Mass at the Salzburg Festival, televised performances of St Matthew Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Chailly, as well as Beethoven Symphony No.9 and Strauss Vier letzte Lieder with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/Blomstedt.

In September 1997, Lynne Dawson’s performance of Libera me from Verdi’s Requiem was watched by a world-wide audience of millions on the occasion of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. Highlights of recent seasons engagements include her sell-out recital début at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Dido & Aeneas with Hengelbrock in Baden-Baden and tours with Les Musiciens du Louvre/Minkowski (Handel’s Ariodante and Hercules), the Freiburger Barockorchester (Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera), Combattimento Consort Amsterdam (Haydn’s L’infedeltà delusa) and the Kings Consort (Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas).

Concert engagements have taken her throughout Europe and South America in a multi-faceted repertoire including Bach’s Magnificat, Haydn’s Berenice che fai, Mahler’s Symphony No 2, Elgar’s The Kingdom, Schumann’s Faustszenen, Gorecki Symphony No 3, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 and Requiems by Fauré, Brahms, Verdi and Mozart.Last summer, Lynne sang Cleopatre in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona with future operatic engagements taking her to De Vlaamse Opera for Richard III, a new commission by Giorgio Battistelli and on a tour of France as Handel’s Agrippina with Jean-Claude Malgoire.

On the concert platform, Lynne will be heard in many of Europe’s major concert halls including those in London, Berlin, Turin, Edinburgh, Paris, Istanbul, Warsaw, Amsterdam and Milan.  Her newest release, Voyage a Paris, a collection of French song with Julius Drake, was just released.