Ethna Robinson - mezzo-soprano
Irish mezzo soprano Ethna Robinson was a company principal with English National Opera 1984-1995. Her many roles for ENO have included Hansel in the award winning production of Hansel and Gretel which was filmed for BBC TV, Dorabella, Cherubino, Olga Eugene Onegin, Cupid Orpheus in the Underworld, Miriam Mosè in Egitto, Beatrice Beatrice and Benedict, Melanto/Juno The Return of Ulysses, Kitchen Boy Rusalka, Pitti-Sing The Mikado, Driad Ariadne auf Naxos, and the Nurse King Priam. She created the roles of Euridice (Myth) in Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus and Philida in Jonathan Harvey’s Inquest of Love, which she also performed at La Monnaie in Brussels.
More recent roles include Federica Luisa Miller, Madame Larina Eugene Onegin, Mrs Herring and Mrs Sedley for Opera North, and Suzuki, Page Salome, Hermia A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Zulma L’Italiana in Algeri, Third Lady Die Zauberflöte, The Monitor Suor Angelica, 2nd Secretary to Mao Nixon in China, St Teresa II Four Saints in Three Acts, Rita The Handmaid’s Tale, Flosshilde Das Rheingold, Schwertleite Die Walküre and Giovanna Ernani for ENO.
She has made many appearances on the concert platform, including Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields at the Flanders Festival, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Singapore, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius and Mozart’s Mass in C minor at the Aldeburgh Festival and Lambert’s Rio Grande at the Royal Festival Hall. Recent performances include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Donizetti’s Requiem with the Northern Sinfonia, Messiah with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, and Mozart’s Requiem with the Hallé Orchestra. In 2001 she sung the Sorceress Dido and Aeneas with the Irish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan.
Ethna Robinson received her early musical training at the Dublin College of Music with Nancy Culthorpe, before the John Player Vocal Bursary and an Irish Arts Council Scholarship enabled her to continue her studies, first at the Birmingham School of Music with Pamela Cook, and then at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Noelle Barker. In addition to a BP Scholarship for the Guildhall Opera Course, She won many prizes during her study including the Dorothea Crompton Prize for French Song, the Vera Roza Prize for Lieder, the Schubert Prize, the Sydney de Vries Prize, the Sir Frederick G Painter Prize and the Royal Overseas League Special Singers’ Prize.
Future roles Mrs Sedley Peter Grimes for Opera North, and Suzuki for the Nationale Reisopera.