Anne-Marie Owens

Anne-Marie Owens was born in South Shields and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Laura Sarti and at the National Opera Studio. She made her professional debut as Mistress Quickly in Falstaff for Glyndebourne Touring Opera and joined English National Opera in 1985, where her more recent roles have included Anezka The Two Widows, High Priestess in La Vestale, Marfa in Khovanshchina, Jezibaba in Rusalka and Judith Weir's Blond Eckbert (filmed for Channel 4).

As one of Britain's leading mezzo-sopranos, she has performed for many of the world's great opera companies, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Opéra National de Paris, Théâtre Royale de La Monnaie, Opéra de Lausanne, New York City Opera, Santiago Opera, Arizona Opera, Santa Fé Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Opera di San Carlo, the Komische Oper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opera Australia and at the Hong Kong and Saito Kinen Festivals. Her vast operatic repertoire has included Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Amneris in Aïda, Azucena in Il Travatore, Venus in Tannhäuser, Herodias in Salome, and Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. While maintaining many of these roles in her repertoire, further engagements have included Morzova in Tchaikovsky's Opricnick in Cagliari, Madelon in Andrea Chenier for Scottish Opera, Ragonde in Le Comte Ory for Garsington Opera, Witch in Hansel and Gretel, Jezibaba in Rusalka for Opera Australia, Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro and Mistress Quickly for Grange Park Opera.

Anne-Marie is also much in demand on the concert platform where she regularly performs the works of Mahler, Vaughan Williams, Elgar and the choral works of Verdi, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven with such orchestras as the London Symphony, OAE, Detroit Symphony, BBC Symphony, CBSO, RSNO, Orchestre Philarmonique de Liège, City of London Sinfonia and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. This season's engagements include Mrs Grose in The Turn of the Screw for Glyndebourne on Tour, Azucena in Il Travatore and Mistress Quickly for WNO, Elijah at the Newbury Festival and Jezibaba for Grange Park Opera.