Featured Artist

Elena Xanthoudakis

Soprano

Profile

Elena Xanthoudakis holds music degrees from the Victorian College of the Arts and the University of Melbourne. After gaining a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she received her MMus with distinction in 2005. She also studied as part of a young artist programme at the Maggio Musicale (Florence).

Elena has won over 80 first prizes in Eisteddfodau in Australia, and internationally has won the Maria Callas International Grand Prix 2003 (Oratorio - Lied) in Athens, the International Mozart Competition 2006 in Salzburg, International Adam Didur Opera Singers Competition 2008, Tait Vocal prize in the Performing Australian Music Competition 2008 and was a major prizewinner in Placido Domingo’s 2008 ‘Operalia’.

Operatic performances include Clorinda in La Cenerentola, Frasquita in Carmen, Krista in The Makropulos Case, Frasquita, Miss Schlesen in Satyagraha (ENO); Xenia in Boris Godunoff (Opera National du Rhin); Blonde in Abduction from the Seraglio (Opera North); Contessa di Folleville in Il viaggio a Reims (Maggio Musicale); Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor (Opera de Quebec); Adina in L’elisir d’amore (Victorian Opera, Scottish Opera) and Jemmy in Guillaume Tell (Academia di Santa Cecila). Recordings include Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (ABC Classics), the role of Krista in The Makropulos Case for English National Opera with Sir Charles Mackerras (Chandos) and Frasquita in Carmen for the Royal Opera Covent Garden.

Engagements in 2011 include Lisa and the title role of Amina in the new production of La Sonnambula at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Jemmy in Guillaume Tell for the BBC Proms and gala concerts in Poland and Australia as well as her Wigmore Hall debut. She will also be covering Countess Adele in Le Comte Ory for The Metropolitan Opera, New York. In 2012 she will sing Clorinda in La Cenerentola at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Photo: Johan Persson