Tales of Love and Second Chances

Milly Forrest studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. She was awarded the Ferrier-Loveday song prize in the 2020 Kathleen Ferrier competition. She is a Samling Young Artist, a Britten Pears Young Artist and an Opera Prelude young Artist.

As well as performances of contemporary music with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jette Parker Young Artists, and the Oxford Lieder Festival, she has sung Iris in Semele (Shanghai Symphony Orchestra), Alice in Le Comte Ory (Garsington), Miranda in The Enchanted Island (British Youth Opera), and, since these Opera Evenings, the title role in Dalia, a new opera by Roxanna Panufnik (Garsington).

Julieth Lozano was an Irene Hanson and Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells scholar, and a 2019/20 Young Artist at the National Opera Studio in London.

Her roles have included Vixen in The Cunning Little Vixen and Woodbird in Siegfried (Longborough Festival Opera), Zerlina in Don Giovanni (Verbier Festival), and Norina in Don Pasquale (Random Opera). She has also sung Aksina (Lady Macbeth), Tytania (Midsummer Night’s Dream), Despina (Cosi Fan Tutte), and Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), and debuted for Welsh National Opera as Zayed/Young Mary in their 2021 production of Al Wasl for the delayed 2020 Dubai Expo. 

Joanna Songi studied at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music and was awarded first place in the Dean and Chadlington Competition, and the Brooks-Van der Pump English Song Competition. She was an Opera Prelude Young Artist, a Philip and Dorothy Green Young Concert Artist Award winner, and a Britten-Pears Young Artist.

As well as performing with companies including Glyndebourne, Garsington Opera, West Green Opera, Opera de Tenerife, the Dunedin Consort, and the English Concert, her recent roles have included Despina for Wild Arts’s Così fan tutte (2022), and a variety of parts in Henry V at the Donmar Warehouse (2022), with a subsequent NT Live Broadcast. 

Martha Jones studied at the Royal College of Music International Opera School and was awarded the Susan Chilcott Scholarship by the Royal Philharmonic Society during her time there. She has participated in Young Artist programs for the Ravinia Festival, Carnegie Hall, Britten Pears, and Samling.

As well as singing Dorabella for Wild Arts’s Così Fan Tutte last summer, she has performed the same role for English Touring Opera and Classical Opera /The Mozartists, and has sung with English National Opera, the Grange Festival, Scottish Opera, Opera de Limoges, Opera Vlaanderen, Glyndebourne, and the LPO. Her recordings include The Call with Malcolm Martineau.

Richard is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music’s Opera Course and supported by Opera Prelude. As well as various live performances with English Touring Opera (including Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Bach’s St John and St Matthew Passions), he has appeared in a number of their online broadcasts during lockdown, and in roles for Garsington Opera (in their 2013 and 2015 seasons), Birmingham Opera Company, Buxton International Festival, and as a young artist for Mid-Wales Opera. He sang Pedrillo (The Abduction from the Seraglio) in Tokyo with Diva Opera. 

After reading Classics at St John’s College, Cambridge, Xavier took his masters degree at the Royal College of Music as a Princess Heidi Von Hohenzollern scholar and an Opera Prelude Young Artist. He graduated in 2020 and moved on to the Mascarade Opera Studio in Florence, and the Centre de Perfeccionament in Valencia.

His roles have included Don José (Carmen) for Waterperry Opera Festival; Lensky (Eugene Onegin), Tebaldo (The Capulets and the Montagues), and Don Ramiro (Cinderella) for a showcase at La Fenice in Venice; and various other performances for Glyndebourne, Opera North, and Longborough Festival Opera among others, with conductors such as Dame Jane Glover and Robin Ticciati.

Edmund studied at the Royal Academy of Music and National Opera Studio supported by the Glyndebourne New Generation Programme, and Peter and Helen Blumer.

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Operatic roles have included Colline in Puccini’s La Boheme for Northern Ireland Opera, Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Nevill Holt, Eddy in Turnage’s Greek at the Arcola Theatre, Bartolo in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Oberon in Purcell’s Fairy Queen at Waterperry, and Lakai in Ariadne auf Naxos for the Glyndebourne Festival. Other roles have included the Tsar in Weill’s Der Zar Lässt Sich Photographieren, Don Alfonso in Cosi fan Tutte, and Dandini in La Cenerentola.

Timothy Nelson studied at the Royal College of Music International Opera School, where he was awarded the McCulloch Prize for Opera. He was a Jerwood Young Artist at the Glyndebourne Festival; a winner of the Bruce Millar Gulliver Prize, the RCM Joan Chissell Schumann Competition, and the Gerald Moore Award Singers Prize; and was a recipient of the Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells Postgraduate Voice Fellowship.

Alongside solo performances at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, and Cadogan Hall, he has sung with Opera North (as Marcello in La Boheme), the Royal Opera House, English Touring Opera, Diva Opera, Opera Holland Park, and the Grange Festival.