Borka cast 2023

"The rich layers of Anna Sideris’ appealing lyric soprano, conveyed sensual sauciness and flashed with feistiness…” (Claire Seymour, Opera Magazine). 

Anna Sideris is a lyric coloratura soprano working on the opera stage and recital platform, recognized for her dramatically engaging performances and richness of tone. 

Recent operatic performances include: First Lady The Magic Flute (Mozart) for Oxford Opera, Yum Yum Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan) for Merry Opera, Actrice Verlaine en Prison (Burke and Gonzalez), Giulia Grisi Victorian Pantomime at Kensington Palace, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni (Mozart) for Rogue Opera and Opera Loki; False Angele The Tsar Wants His Photograph Taken (Kurt Weill); Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart) for Dartington Opera and Merry Opera Company; chorus mentor Wagner Projectand Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk (Shostakovich) for Birmingham Opera.

Future projects include Violetta La Traviata (Verdi)

Concerts include: Handel Messiah, Faure Requiem and Mozart Requiem for Brandenburg Festival, Tippett Child of our Time, Mozart Mass in C minor performed in Bath Bach Choir, Boulez Improvisations sur Mallarmé with the Manon Ensemble for Aldeburgh festival, Strauss Vier letzte liederwith the Oxford Millennium Orchestra.

She performed two Fauré songs for BBC Radio 3 Music Matters and performed in a number of recitals for the Rimbaud & Verlaine foundation at Kings Place London.

Anna read music at Oxford University; where she participated in masterclasses with Renée Fleming and Toby Spence. She obtained her Masters from Royal Academy of Music and then graduated the Opera Course at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2017.

Anna is also a passionate teaching artist. She is currently Head of Outreach for Alina Orchestra, she works for Grange Park Opera on their Primary Robbins scheme, she was a Live Music Nowartist and she was a leading artist in the inaugural year of Little Opera UK. Anna is always on the lookout for ways to bring music into the wider community. 

Susie trained at Trinity Laban as an Eve Malpass and Kathleen Roberts vocal scholar. 

Roles include Sam-I-Am in Opera North’s Green Eggs and Ham and cover Despinio in Opera North’s Greek Passion; Pamina (Magic Flute) OperaUpClose; Ruth (Ruddigore) Charles Court Opera; cover Alyson (The Rattler) Mahogany Opera Group; Bridesmaid (Marriage of Figaro) Opera Holland Park; Chief Hen and Grasshopper (Cunning Little Vixen) British Youth Opera, Emily (Dead Equal) Helios Collective, Josephine (HMS Pinafore) Opera Anywhere; Rowan (The Little Sweep) and Lady-in-Waiting (Macbeth) both for Blackheath Halls Opera.

Concert highlights include Jette Parker Young Artist recitals at Blackheath Halls in association with Trinity Laban; soprano soloist in Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle at the Saville Club, London, and soloist in Elijah at St John’s Smith Square, conducted by Edward Gardner.

Susie is delighted to be joining Ignite and looks forward to goosing around in this beautiful show!

A Yorkshire girl through and through, Beth left the motherland for a decade to travel the UK and it’s various conservatoires. After thorough investigation, she realised there is simply nowhere like home so packed her bags and headed homeward where she now lives with her boyfriend and their many pet plants.

Beth has worked for the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Opera North and Opera Holland Park and is involved in the development of several new operas for the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne and Faber Music.

Career highlights include Penelope Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria at Opéra de Vichy and Opéra de Lyon, L’enfant L’enfant et les sortilèges at Opéra de Lyon and the Royal Opera House Muscat, the premiere of Hannah Kendall’s Knife of Dawn at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Vaughan William’s Serenade to Music in the Throne Room of Buckingham Palace, Bach’s St

Matthew Passion in Southwark and Coventry Cathedral and Elgar’s The Music Makers in Guildford Cathedral.

Upcoming engagements include the title role in Mascagni’s Zanetto, Jervaulx Singers French Concert, Dorabella in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, Mezzo in Glass’ A Madrigal Opera, Mezzo soloist in Waterperry Opera’s Summer Opera Gala and Olga in Lehar’s The Merry Widow at the NCPA

in Mumbai.

When not singing, you can usually find her in the stands at Headingley Stadium watching cricket with her Dad or settling into her favourite armchair with a good book and a cup of tea(/gin).

www.beth-moxon.co.uk

Helen studied at RAM and RWCMD, where she won several prizes including the Seligman Award for Excellence. Her recent operatic projects have included the first performance of Stradella’s The Power of Paternal Love since the 17thcentury with Barber Opera, and Gods of the Game, a co-production with Grange Park Opera and Sky Arts to mark the 2022 World Cup. Other recent opera roles include Juno (Semele), Isabella (L’Italiana in Algeri), Witch (Hansel and Gretel), Popova (The Bear) and Geneviève (Pelléas et Mélisande). She has also premiered works at Grimeborn, Tête à Tête and the Sage, Gateshead, as well as site-specific performances of new music at the Foundling Museum, Greenwich Observatory and the National Portrait Gallery. 

Helen is particularly interested in performing the works of under-represented female composers of the past, and recently appeared as Mary in the UK premiere and subsequent revival of Amy Beach’s 1932 opera Cabildoat Grimeborn Festival and Wilton’s Music Hall in London. Her upcoming projects include a filmed production of Suor Angelica with Grange Park Opera, and Das Wunder der Heliane with Nederlandse Reisopera. 

Helen’s solo concert highlights have included Bach St John Passion and Mass in B with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Beethoven Missa Solemnis with the Southbank Sinfonia. She has also appeared in opera galas with Welsh National Opera and Mid Wales Opera. 

This is her first time playing a goose, and she has had a brilliant time practicing her best honking noises. 

Born metres away from junction 12 of the M25, Paul Hopwood started his professional life as an English teacher, eventually ending up at Eton College. However, he then succumbed to an unguarded fit of bohemianism and left teaching to study at the Guildhall. 

Early in his career an unpleasant meeting with a fast-moving BMW scuppered his plans for immediate fame and fortune, but once his legs had been saved by medical science his first job back was the role of an Armed Man on stilts (Die Zauberflöte). Thus empowered, Paul has since played characters varying from the barely noticeable - Jemmy Twitcher in Britten’s Beggar’s Opera at the ROH  - to the worryingly megalomaniac – Aurelios, Master of the Universe (in the now sadly-forgotten experimental sci-fi opera - Aurelios, Master of the Universe). He has a reputation for working on unusual and challenging projects, but has also covered familiar title roles, such as Berlioz’s Faust and Offenbach’s Hoffmann. 

Recent career highlights have included roles at ENO and at the Göttingen International Händel Festival, where he performed in Händel’s Arminio, performed a solo recital and learned to use the umlaut. Mostly, however, Paul manages to keep busy whilst being rarely heard. This is because he has now understudied over 350 performances at major houses without ever having ‘gone on’. When he hits the magic figure of 365, he plans to host a huge party, then start his own opera company so that he can give himself some interesting roles. With this in mind, he has bought the .com domain ‘eternalyouthopera’, and has written a new translation of an Offenbach operetta about nearly wining the lottery.

Jonathan Cooke is a versatile tenor, equally comfortable on the operatic stage, concert platform, and choral circuit.

He graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) in 2015 with a Master of Music degree. Prin-cipal roles whilst studying include Ruggero in Puccini's La Rondine (RCS), Tamino in the Young Opera Venture's touring production of The Magic Flute and Le Mari in Poulenc's surreal one-act opera Les Mam-elles de Tiresias (RCS).

Since moving to London, Jonathan’s operatic roles have been many and varied, though recently he has been focussing on the larger lyric roles, including Rodolfo La Boheme (cover, Mid Wales Opera), Don Jose Carmen (Various companies), Hoffmann The Tales of Hoffmann (Kentish Opera), Pinkerton Madame Butterfly (Opera Up Close), and Cavaradossi Tosca (Various companies)

Concert highlights include Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and St. Nicolas, Elgar The Kingdom, Verdi Requiem, Rossini Petite Messe Solenelle and Handel Messiah.

Jonathan and his wife (also a professional singer) welcomed a baby girl into the fold last September, and are both getting to grips with balancing their careers alongside full time parenting. This notwithstanding, over the summer Jonathan will perform the roles of Beadle Bamford Sweeney Todd (West Green House Opera), and Gastone La Traviata (St Endellion Summer Festival), he is also helping to develop roles in Gaṅgā , an exciting new opera by Jataneel Banerjee based on the Hindu epic Mahabharata

London born Baritone, Matthew Kellett, is a graduate of The Royal Northern College of Music and Trinity College of Music, where he was awarded the TCM Trust’s Silver Medal for vocal studies. 

Matthew is a regular performer with opera companies throughout the UK, most often seen with Charles Court Opera where he has taken many roles, including: Papageno (The Magic Flute), Basilio (The Barber of Seville), Robin Oakapple (Ruddigore), Strephon (Iolanthe) and Dick Deadeye (HMS Pinafore). Away from Charles Court, Matthew has performed with Opera Holland Park, Wexford Festival Opera and the chorus of English National Opera, among many others.

Recently, Matthew appeared in Opera Della Luna’s revival of the Victorian melodrama Sweeney Todd at Wilton’s Music Hall and toured with the National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company playing The Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe.

Matthew is also an experienced concert soloist with past performances including: Haydn The Creation and The Seasons, Bach B Minor Mass, Christmas Oratorio, St Matthew and St John Passions, Handel Messiah and the Requiems of Mozart, Fauré, Brahms and Verdi.

Later this year Matthew will be performing as Robin Oakapple in Ruddigore at Opera Holland Park and performing in Charles Court Opera’s The Mikado at the If Opera Festival.

British Baritone, Ian Beadle hails from Hertfordshire. He completed his vocal studies at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, as a scholar under the tutelage of Professor John Evans. He continued his opera training as part of the English National Opera’s Opera Works programme. One of the highlights of this was performing as part of The Big Barber Bash at the London Coliseum. 

Operatic experience includes Des Grieux LE PORTRAIT DE MANON, Belcore ELISIR D’AMORE and William Dale SILENT NIGHT (Wexford Festival Opera), Masetto DON GIOVANNI, Marco GIANNI SCHICCHI, Quinault ADRIANA LECOUVREUR and Jake Wallace LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST (Opera Holland Park), Guglielmo COSÌ FAN TUTTE (Swansea City Opera), Wizard THE TRAVELLING COMPANION (New Sussex Opera), Lawrence THE WRECKERS(Arcadian Opera), Shackleton SHACKLETON’S CAT (English Touring Opera), The Bridegroom THE VANISHING BRIDEGROOM (British Youth Opera) and Valentin FAUST  (Winterbourne Opera). 

Ian’s recordings include The Wizard in Stanford’s The Travelling Companion (SOMM).  

Recent engagements include Schaunard in La bohème with Opera Brava and Méphistophélès in Faustwith Arcadian Opera. www.ianbeadle.co.uk