Kate Royal

Glyndebourne staged the premiere of The Rape of Lucretia with Kathleen Ferrier cast as Lucretia and the following year premiered Albert Herring. Thirty four years then elapsed before another of Britten’s operas was staged. In 1981, Glyndebourne presented A Midsummer Night’s Dream. An acclaimed staging by director Peter Hall which has enjoyed 4 revivals since, it has frequently been described by critics, and the press alike, as the ‘perfect realisation of a fairy tale’.

Britten employed disparate musical styles and devices to depict the interaction of the fairy kingdom; the quartet of lovers, the Mechanicals and town tradesmen determined to make it in showbiz. He juxtaposes a wide variety of styles to create the various worlds in the play. Brash trombones clash with Elizabethan flourishes, tormented string sounds and tuned percussion evoke the mood of the dark forests. With the challenging vocal writing a combination of singing, sprechstimme and spoken word cleverly intertwine.

This recording from Glyndebourne’s 2006 Festival, and the most recent revival, is a remarkable production cleverly capturing both the callousness of Oberon’s trickery on Tytania, as well as beautifully conveying the sense of sexual freedom that Bottom experiences when encountering Tytania. The stars in this recording are numerous but without doubt Bejun Mehta’s Oberon is one of the greatest on record. Iride Martinez makes a notable UK debut as Tytania. The lovers’ quartet sing almost all of their scenes as an ensemble, and beautifully at that, with Kate Royal (as Helena) and Jared Holt (as Demetrius) making the most harmonious of couples. Matthew Rose is both a wonderful and beguiling Bottom and is at the very heart of this recording whilst not forgetting the perfect performance from the well drilled Trinity Boys Choir, and show stealer, the 11 year-old Jack Morlen as Puck.

Gustav Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 2 ‘Resurrection’ with Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Rundfunkchor Berlin and star soloists Kate Royal and Magdalena Kožená was recorded in concert at Berlin’s Philharmonie in late October 2010 and will be released on CD by EMI Classics in February 2011.

The Symphony, scored for orchestra, soloists and chorus, tackles the great mysteries of life and death and was already among the most successful and popular of Mahler’s symphonies during his lifetime. Not only was the work premiered by the Berliner Philharmoniker (in 1895) but it is an important work in Simon Rattle’s musical trajectory. The partnership of Sir Simon and the BPO in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 portends a ground-breaking new recording.

The concerts on October 28-30 form part of a Mahlerthon of sorts, in which the Berliner Philharmoniker will perform all the symphonies between August 2010 and the end of 2011 in commemoration of two Mahler anniversaries: the 150th anniversary of his birth (7 July 2010) and the centenary of his death (18 May 2011).

The symphonies of Gustav Mahler have been a central theme in Simon Rattle’s career. “[Mahler’s Symphony No 2] was the piece that made me take up conducting in the first place when I heard it in a live performance when I was 12. Mahler aimed to put the entire world into a symphony and this world goes from the death rights of some unnamed hero through a memory of what life was in both its beauty and its horror and final resurrection and redemption. It’s on a vast canvas with many, many performers and, for me, it is one of the most moving of all orchestral works.”

Whilst still a student at the Royal Academy of Music in the 1970s, Rattle organised and conducted a performance of the Second Symphony. Since then, he has performed all of the Mahler symphonies on many occasions, principally with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Wiener Philharmoniker. At his Berlin debut in 1987, Rattle led the Berliner Philharmoniker in the Symphony No. 6, and his inaugural concert as the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor in September 2002 featured the Symphony No. 5.

Simon Rattle’s Mahler symphony performances on disc have won enthusiastic critical praise over the years: “Where Simon Rattle's interpretation is concerned, we must go into the realm of such giant Mahlerians as Walter and Klemperer, dissimilar as they were. For we are dealing here with conducting akin to genius, with insights and instincts that cannot be measured with any old yardstick.” (Gramophone on the 1987 recording of the Symphony No. 2 with the CBSO, Arleen Auger and Dame Janet Baker); “A triumph…It can safely be ranked among the finest performances on record.” (Gramophone on the 2002 recording of Symphony No. 5 with the BPO); “The final ascent to the big blue yonder is surely unsurpassable - on both the sonic and interpretative fronts… There's no doubt, then, that Rattle has inspired all concerned to an achievement which joins his groundbreaking readings of the Third, Seventh and Tenth Symphonies in the Mahlerian heaven.” (BBC Music Magazine on the 2005 recording of the Symphony No. 8 ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ with the CBSO); “One of the finest interpretations on record of Mahler’s great unfinished symphony… Rattle supremely allies mesmerising detail to awesome scale in an intense, award-winning live account” (Classic FM Magazine on the 2000 recording of the Symphony No. 10 with the BPO).

A Lesson in Love tells the universal story of a love won and lost, and contains some beautiful and emotional German lieder, English and American songs and French mélodies.

Kate Royal’s first two orchestral discs for EMI have been critically acclaimed. Here she turns her attention towards a more intimate recital disc with piano.

A Lesson in Love charts the journey of a young girl’s relationship: from the first kiss and thrill of a blossoming love and initial intimacy through to the joy of a love fulfilled, to the disappointment and anger when the relationship breaks down - it ends with the girl’s acceptance and a cheeky sense of optimism about what her future love life might hold… Kate here creates her own unique song cycle, a thematic journey through the highs and lows of love, of young naivety lost and emotional maturity gained, feelings and experiences everyone can relate.

Kate leads us through her own personal choice of song, and her innate sense of drama and her passion for musical storytelling brings a fresh and youthful interpretation of the disc repertoire. A Lesson in Love contains a mixture of well-known songs as well as some surprising rarities, with a range of song styles and languages to appeal to a broad audience. She is joined by the most esteemed and respected accompanists, Malcolm Martineau.

In this double album, the greatest vocal artists of the present day offer their own vision of the singing of their legendary predecessors.

The extraordinary adulation accorded to castrati during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is still today one of the most fascinating phenomena in the history of music. During this golden age of the castrato, these male singers endowed with high voices that combined incredible refinement, amazing power and superhuman virtuosity took the musical world by storm. The whole of Europe was overcome by infatuation for these vocal prodigies. In the absence of the castrati themselves, the singers of today face the formidable challenge of reviving their repertoire. Both male and female singers now undertake the task of bringing back to life the wondrous voices of their androgynous forebears, in music that is by turns unsettling, deeply moving and of a dizzying virtuosity.

A 2CD-Compilation for the Price of 1 + 1 Bonus DVD - Digipack Format

"As a composer, he recognises no boundaries - musical, commercial, geographical or cultural. His is a way of thinking and composing that is perfectly in tune with the spirit of the times." Classic FM Magazine

Karl Jenkins, the classically trained master of global ‘crossover,’ has composed a new work for choir and orchestra, Stella natalis, as a gift to music lovers of all stylistic and spiritual backgrounds for the 2009 holiday season. Its coupling, Joy to the world, features arrangements by Jenkins of carols from around the globe in keeping with the composer’s inclusive and universal approach to the message of music.

The performers represent a mixture of classical and popular artistry. “It has been a privilege,” said Karl Jenkins recently, “to feature the astounding talents of fellow EMI artists Kate Royal [soprano] and Alison Balsom [trumpet] and to introduce BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the year 2008, Alice Halstead. The choir is Tenebrae, whilst as a counterpoint to their ‘classical’ sound, I have revisited my past and re-introduced the ethnic sound of Adiemus, featuring Mary Carewe, who sang on the first Adiemus album Songs of Sanctuary, and Mae McKenna. My orchestration has the usual classical and ethnic percussion mix, the latter played by Jody K Jenkins and Zands. The orchestra is the Marylebone Camerata, a hand-picked group of the finest young players in London, assembled by cellist Jonathan Byers.”

“Stella natalis means ‘star of birth’ or ‘star of origin,’ continues Jenkins, “and the music conveys the Christmas message of peace, goodwill, compassion and a new beginning whilst using a wider palette of inspiration than is usual in such treatments: Zulu text, reference to Hindu gods, as well as the Old Testament, all make an appearance! The libretto, for the most part, is by Carol Barratt together with some established text in Latin and English.”

Joy to the world consists of a set of idiosyncratic arrangements by Karl Jenkins to carols from England, Germany, France, Spain, the West Indies and the African-American Go tell it on the mountain.

Alison Balsom (www.alisonbalsom.com), the highly acclaimed trumpeter, is one of music's great ambassadors. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music, at the Paris Conservatoire and with Håkan Hardenberger. While under the aegis of the Young Concert Artists Trust, she caught the eye of EMI Classics with whom she records exclusively. Alison has also participated in BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme, through which she has performed at the Wigmore Hall and with all of the BBC Orchestras. For EMI, Alison Balsom has recorded a Bach Trumpet and Organ disc, which was enthusiastically received internationally; Caprice, which also won great critical acclaim, and a CD featuring the Haydn and Hummel Trumpet Concertos, which was named among the “24 records of 2008” by The New York Times. Alison Balsom won the Classic FM Listener’s Award at the 2006 Gramophone Awards and was hailed as “Rising Artist of the Year” the following year at the Echo Klassik Awards. In 2009 she became the first Briton ever to be crowned Female Artist of the Year at the Classical BRITs. As a featured performer at the 2009 Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, she played the Haydn Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and David Robertson and works by Gershwin and Piazzola.

“A natural communicator, [endowed with] musicality, a lyric soprano of rare loveliness, a poised and dignified manner and [gorgeous] looks,” (The Sunday Times), Kate Royal signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics in 2006. Since then, the Guildhall and National Opera Studio graduate and winner of Kathleen Ferrier, John Christie and Royal Philharmonic Society awards has recorded two critically acclaimed solo albums: the eponymous Kate Royal and Midsummer Night, an atmospheric recital collection focusing on female characters in 20th century opera and operetta. She has also been featured in albums with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Ian Bostridge and Sir Paul McCartney. Equally at home in opera and recital, classical and ‘crossover,’ Kate has wowed audiences and critics alike with her appearances at Glyndebourne, the Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh Festival and Royal Opera House. Upcoming appearances include the Berlin Philharmonic and the Orchestra of Bavarian Radio under Simon Rattle, Le Concert d’Astrée with Emanuelle Haïm, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Les Musiciens du Louvre. She has sung Donna Elvira at Glyndebourne, Pamina and Micaëla at the Bavarian State Opera and Pamina and Anne Trulove at the Royal Opera House. (www.royalmidsummer.com)

Soprano Alice Halstead (www.alicehalstead.com), a choir girl at St Alphege Church, Solihull and a pupil at King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham, won the coveted title of “BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year 2008” award at St. Paul's Cathedral, London. From the age of four she has attended the Birmingham Junior Conservatoire where she studies singing, cello and piano. She is also a member of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain (Training North). Alice has appeared several times on BBC One’s “Songs of Praise” and has featured in many national radio broadcasts including Good Morning Sunday with Aled Jones and Friday Night Is Music Night with the BBC Concert Orchestra on BBC Radio 2, In Tune on BBC Radio 3 and Sunday Worship on BBC Radio 4.

The chief librettist for Stella natalis Carol Barratt is a composer, pianist, lyricist and music educator with over 70 publications in print. She has written text for many works by Karl Jenkins, to whom she has been married for 34 years.

Karl Jenkins is one of the most prolific and performed composers in the world today – his anti-war work alone, The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace, commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds for the Millennium celebrations and premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in London in April 2000, has been performed nearly four hundred times in recent years.

Born in Wales and a graduate of Cardiff University followed by post-graduate studies at London’s Royal College of Music, Jenkins was originally an oboist. It was a passion for jazz – he was a member of the bands Nucleus and Soft Machine – that led him to composition. Classically trained, but drawing on a diverse range of global influences, his composing style has transcended musical boundaries, including memorable ad jingles for Delta Air Lines, the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society, De Beers diamonds, British Airways and Levi’s Jeans, the global ‘crossover’ phenomenon Adiemus, more ‘classical’ commissions such as Requiem, Stabat Mater, Quirk and The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace and television and feature film soundtracks.

Recent recordings include Kiri Sings Karl with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa; Requiem and Stabat Mater, which was premiered and released in March 2008, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus and the EMO ensemble from Helsinki.

The highest placed living composer in Classic FM’s “Hall of Fame,” Karl Jenkins’s recordings have won seventeen gold or platinum disc awards. Jenkins holds Fellowships or Professorships at five universities/conservatoires, including the Royal Academy of Music. He was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2005 New Years Honours List and a ‘Red f’ from Classic FM for ‘outstanding service to classical music.” He has been a castaway on BBC Radio 3’s Desert Island Discs and featured on ITV’s The South Bank Show.

“Karl Jenkins is a rarity among contemporary composers, balancing popularity with innovation.” (The Independent)

Continuing the Handel series from Le Concert d’Astrée and Emmanuelle Haïm is La resurrezione, composed during the young Handel’s period in Rome and first performed there in 1708. The work recounts the events of Easter and the solo singers portray Lucifer, Mary Magdalene, an Angel, St John the Evangelist, and St Mary Cleophas.

It calls upon a large orchestra, led and directed at the first performance by the master violinist Arcangelo Corelli. The role of Mary Magdalene, here performed by the lush-voiced young British soprano (and EMI Classics artist) Kate Royal, was sung at the first performance by the celebrated Margherita Durastanti, even though the Pope had forbidden female singers to perform in public.

In April 2009, Emmanuelle Haïm led a performance of La resurrezione at London’s Barbican Centre, part of a tour which also covered Paris, Dijon, Aix-en-Provence, Lille, Pamplona, Valladolid and Salzburg. The Guardian reported that: “Emmanuelle Haïm's understanding of the relationship between sense and sensuality in Handel has marked her out as one of his finest interpreters, and her performance with her own Concert d'Astrée was notable for its immediacy and expression. The playing had touches of magic as recorders and flutes comforted the uncomprehending saints, and flaring brass heralded the arrival of a new dawn … Camilla Tilling's joyous Angel let fly volleys of flamboyant coloratura … while the great Sonia Prina was vocally spectacular and immensely moving as Mary Cleophas.”

The Salzburg performance led the Salzburger Nachrichten to describe the “springy mastery” of the ensemble, “with sparkling accents from the trumpets, lute and gamba … A Baroque highpoint in an Easter Festival dominated by Romanticism.” Drehpunkt Kultur described Luca Pisaroni’s Lucifer as “dangerously honed” and Toby Spence as “a master of subtle ornamentation”. Overall, the ensemble of singers was “technically and stylistically at the peak of today’s Handel interpretation”, while Haïm herself “knows how to ignite her ensemble to such powerful effect and then to restrain the emotion once more, so that the force of expression never runs wild.”

This complements the judgement of Forum Opéra on Haïm's Virgin Classics recording of another Italian work by Handel, Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno: “Emmanuelle Haïm favours the chamber dimension of the work in an interpretation that is balanced, vivid, refined – but not precious – lively, but never aggressive. She prefers the power of suggestion and this puts the music at an advantage: she breathes and lets things run their natural course. Isn’t that the apogee of art? This Trionfo could become a classic.”

2CD Multipack with libretto and slipcase

When Thomas Adès conducted his opera The Tempest at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2007, EMI Classics microphones were on hand to record this “masterpiece of airy beauty and eerie power.” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker). The cast included Simon Keenlyside, Cynthia Sieden, Ian Bostridge, Toby Spence, Kate Royal, Philip Langridge, and Stephen Richardson, many of whom took part in the critically acclaimed world premiere three years earlier.

“there are moments in all three acts which are by any standards sheerly, heartstoppingly beautiful; passages in which the music seems to be mined from an unfathomable depth of feeling …” Andrew Clements, The Guardian

“It’s probably the first new opera I’ve experienced in 20 years that left me feeling not just intellectually aroused but deeply moved … A coming-of-age piece. And, yes, momentous.” Michael White, The Independent

“Adès does not shirk the traditional big operatic moments. There is a thrilling and moving quintet of reconciliation and he gives each of his main characters an imposing and impressive aria…these are expressed in music of extraordinary imaginative power.” Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph

"The evening deservedly belongs to Adès, who himself conducts a score as orchestrally lush and evocative as vocally varied and articulate. The cumulative effect is by turns ethereal, witty, incandescent, often ravishing". The Guardian 2004

“(Adès’s The Tempest) has the potential to be one of the most enduring new operas of the decade. (…) If you need proof that the hype surrounding Adès is more than just hope and expectation, you will find it here” The Guardian on the Royal Opera House revival in March 07.

“Adès has provided Covent Garden and British opera in general with one of its great moments. The cheering from every corner of the theatre on Tuesday - orchestra pit included - felt like what it was: British opera’s equivalent of the England World Cup rugby win.” The Guardian

Kate Royal’s second recording for EMI Classics is Midsummer Night, an atmospheric recital collection focusing on female characters in 20th century opera and operetta, reflecting their pain and ecstasy in love. The programme ranges from well known turn-of-the-century works by Dvorák (Song to the Moon from Rusalka) and Lehár (Vilja from The Merry Widow) to Midsummer Night, from the English composer William Alwyn’s opera Miss Julie. Edward Gardner conducts the English National Opera Orchestra with guest appearances by Thomas Allen, Andrew Staples and the Crouch End Festival Chorus.

"[My] Inspiration for this album began with Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw and the Governess - my first major role in a 20th century opera,” said Kate Royal. “The music got under my skin in a way I had not experienced before. Britten's vocal writing is immediate and naturally dramatic. His harmonic world seeps into the subconscious underpinning the character as a fully formed human being rather than a romantic stereotype. So, with the Governess’s Tower Scene as a starting point, I went in search of other arias that shared this combination of intensity and abandon. These are worlds in which the heroines are laid bare, vulnerable in their journey towards emotional fulfilment … women lost in love [or] trapped in a deeper trance-like state as they wrestle with their unsated desires. … Alongside some of the century's seminal works I [was] also delighted to discover what I believe to be some hidden gems for the soprano voice."

Stephen Johns, Vice President of A&R, EMI Classics, has also commented on the choice of repertoire, "The selection of songs for this recital is illuminated by their composers’ reactions to the changing musical scenes of the 20th century. All the arias were written after 1900, but each composer has found a different and unique way of coping with the transition into the century. Some are still firmly rooted in the lush harmonies of the 19th century like Dvorák and Korngold; some even clinging onto the innocence of the past world, such as Léhar. Others are experimenting with newer harmonies - the exoticism of early Stravinsky, and the aching beauty of Walton and Alwyn's music. Still others find new life in the old harmonic structures - Britten and Floyd. What binds them together, in a programme that coincidentally emphasises the nocturnal, the close of the day, is a desire to allow the soprano voice fully to express beauty in melody ….”

Among the lesser known arias on Kate Royal’s CD are those from operas by the English composer William Alwyn and American composers Bernard Herrmann and Carlisle Floyd: William Alwyn (1905-1985) based his only major opera, Miss Julie, on August Strindberg’s tense and intimate drama of class and sexual relations from 1888. Composed between 1973 and 1976, Miss Julie was premiered on BBC Radio in 1977, but has had only one semi-professional stage production, in Copenhagen in 1991; Bernard Herrmann’s many film scores, notably his collaborations with Orson Welles (Citizen Kane), Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho) and Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver), have diverted attention from his other musical achievements. He was particularly proud of Wuthering Heights, his major opera to a libretto by Lucille Fletcher (his first wife), based on Emily Brontë’s novel. Herrmann (1911-1975) composed it between 1943 and 1951, but the opera was not staged until 1982, seven years after his death; The American composer Carlisle Floyd (b 1926), whose own version of Wuthering Heights was premiered in 1958, has produced a steady stream of operas over a period of fifty years, a couple of which have become staples of the American repertoire. His greatest success has been Susannah, based on the story in the Apocrypha of Susannah and the Elders translated to a contemporary Bible-belt setting. First staged at Florida University in 1955, the opera has been performed predominantly by American companies, notably the Metropolitan Opera in 1999.

"She is a natural communicator, has all the ingredients for an important career – musicality, a lyric soprano of rare loveliness, a poised and dignified manner and looks gorgeous too" The Sunday Times