Emma Selway - mezzo-soprano
Emma Selway made her operatic debut at English National Opera as Kate Pinkerton Madama Butterfly. Since then roles have included Charlotte in the UK premiere of Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, Octavian Der Rosenkavalier, Fox The Cunning Little Vixen and Waltraute The Valkyrie (ENO), Hippolyta A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Royal Opera House), Pauline The Queen of Spades (Welsh National Opera), Dorabella (Opera North/Glyndebourne Touring Opera), Sesto La Clemenza di Tito (Glyndebourne Touring Opera), The Musician Manon Lescaut and Cephisa Ermione (Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Idamante (Canadian Opera Company/Opera Northern Ireland), Penelope Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria (Birmingham Opera Company), title role Carmen (English Touring Opera), Anna Seven Deadly Sins (Batignano), Madame Popova The Bear (The Opera Group) and the title role in The Rape of Lucretia (Cambridge University Opera Society). She sung Judit Duke Bluebeard’s Castle in Cambridge for The Opera Group, and has subsequently covered the role for the Royal Opera, Opéra de Nancy, Scottish Opera and WNO.
She has created the roles of Madame in The Maids with music by John Lunn at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, Firk Thwaite by Jürgen Simpson for Almeida Opera with performances in London, Dublin and Aldeburgh,Wife in Jonathan Dove’s An Old Way to Pay New Debts and Queen in Luke Bedford’s Seven Angels for The Opera Group. She sung in Alexander Goehr’s Kantan and Damask Drum with Almeida Opera at the Aldeburgh Festival, then in London and Paris and covered the title role in Sophie’s Choice for the ROH.
She has an extensive oratorio repertoire including Messiah, Bach’s Mass in B minor, Christmas Oratorio, Magnificat and St Matthew Passion, Mozart’s Requiem, Schubert’s Mass in A flat, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater, Verdi’s Requiem, and Elgar’s The Music Makers and The Dream of Gerontius. Concert performances include Le Martyre de St Sébastiane with the Hallé Orchestra/Nagano, Seven Sacraments, a dramatic oratorio by Neil Bartlett, Nicolas Bloomfield and Leah Hausman, at the Brighton Festival, Mahler’s Symphony No 2 and Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the London Mozart Players, Mahler’s Symphony No 8 with the St Bartholomew’s Hospital Choral Society and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, the British premiere of Bacalov’s Misa Tango with the Crouch End Festival Chorus at the Barbican Concert Hall, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Eté for the Wagner Society, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 for Raymond Gubbay at the Barbican, and Britten’s Spring Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem with the Guinness Choir in Dublin.
Emma Selway studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1989 to 1992 and the National Opera Studio. She won a number of prizes at the RAM including the Opera Prize, the Isabella Lucas Prize and the Tom Hammond Prize. Amici di Verdi supported her study at the NOS. She was a finalist in the 1991 Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Competition. She now studies with Mollie Petri.
Future engagements include Purcell and Handel arias in Belarus.