Rosalind Plowright

Rosalind Anne Plowright OBE (born 21 May 1949) is an English opera singer who spent much of her career as a soprano but in 1999 changed to the mezzo-soprano range.

Rosalind Plowright was born in Worksop and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and at the London Opera Centre.

Plowright made her professional debut with Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1975 as Agathe in Der Freischütz. She sang Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro with the Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1976 and 1977. Also in 1975, she appeared with both Welsh National Opera and Kent Opera before making her debut with English National Opera as the Page in Salome in 1976. She earned good notices in 1979 for her Fennimore in Frederick Delius's Fennimore and Gerda at London's Camden Festival. She then appeared with ENO in the roles of Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw, Desdemona in Otello, Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, Hélène in Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes, Elisabeth de Valois in Don Carlos, and Tosca. Her recording of Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, with Janet Baker as Mary, Queen of Scots, brought her wider recognition.

In 1980, Plowright sang Manon Lescaut at Torre del Lago, Aida and Ariadne in Frankfurt, Ariadne in Bern and Ortlinde at the Royal Opera House. Her American operatic début was in San Diego as Medora in the United States premiere of Verdi's Il corsaro. Her debut at La Scala came in 1983 when she sang Suor Angelica.

Since then, she has performed in major opera houses and companies around the world including Covent Garden, Hamburg (from 1982), Madrid (from 1982), Verona (from 1985), the Paris Opera (from 1987), Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Vienna State Opera, Athens, Rome (from 1990), The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Arena di Verona, Florence, La Fenice Venice, the Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires and Municipal Theater of Santiago.

With José Carreras, she sang Andrea Chénier at Covent Garden and recorded La forza del destino for Deutsche Grammophon. With Plácido Domingo she has performed Il trovatore and Die Walküre at Covent Garden. With Luciano Pavarotti she performed Aida at Covent Garden and a gala concert for 25,000 at the Arena of Verona. She sang Cherubini's Medée at the Buxton Festival, Lyon, Lausanne, The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Athens. Plowright also performed Norma in Montpelier, Pittsburgh (1985), Lyon, Santiago di Chile and Paris (1987) and in Oviedo and Bonn (1988).

Among the many conductors with whom she has worked are Carlo Maria Giulini, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Bernard Haitink, Antonio Pappano, Michael Gielen, Sylvain Cambreling, Semyon Bychkov, Seiji Ozawa, Mark Elder, Roger Norrington and Giuseppe Patanè. She also gave recitals with Geoffrey Parsons in over 20 international festivals.

As an actress, Plowright has appeared as Grace Vosper in the BBC series The House of Eliott and with she played the part of Hermione Harefield in Anglia Television's The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous (1997), an adaptation of the Jilly Cooper novel of the same name.

As a theatre artist, Plowright has appeared in the new musical comedy Two's a Crowd. ...

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