Performer Profile
Judith Howarth
Judith Howarth studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. After graduating, she was immediately engaged as a principal by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. During nine seasons there she sang many roles including Oscar Un ballo in maschera, Iris Semele, Musetta La Boheme, Liu Turandot, Gilda Rigoletto, Morgana Alcina, Norina Don Pasquale, Cressida Troilus and Cressida and Marguerite Les Huguenots.
Subsequent engagements world-wide include Musetta in Cincinnati, Ellen in Orford, Peter Grimes in Toulouse and Santiago de Chile, Christine Intermezzo and Aithra Die ägyptische Helena in Santa Fe, Nedda I Pagliacci and all four soprano roles in Les Contes d’Hoffmann for Florida Grand Opera, Olga Fedora for the Washington National Opera, Violetta La Traviata for the Minnesota Opera, English National Opera and Glyndebourne, Marzelline Fidelio, Stonatrilla L’Opera seria and Liu at the Staatsoper, Berlin, Dalila Samson (Handel) for the Netherlands Opera, Marie La fille du régiment in Geneva, Pamina in Strasbourg, and Leïla The Pearl Fishers, Fiorilla The Turk in Italy and Madame Mao Nixon in China for ENO.
On the concert platform Judith has toured with Placido Domingo to Seattle, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Brussels and Amsterdam. She sang Strauss’s Four Last Songs in Vienna conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Her festival appearances include Aix-en-Provence, The Proms, Tanglewood, Edinburgh and Salzburg. She has worked with many distinguished conductors including Georges Prêtre, Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Georg Solti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Claudio Abbado, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Charles Mackerras, and Seiji Ozawa.
Judith has appeared on television all over the world and has a discography of more than 30 recordings including Troilus and Cressida, conducted by Richard Hickox, which won Gramophone Magazine’s Opera of the Year. Her latest recordings, released this year, are Il Segreto di Susanna with the Oviedo Filarmonia under Friedrich Haider and the title role in Mercadante’s Maria Stuarda, regina di Scozia for Opera Rara.
Recently she has sung Butterfly in a new production, staged for her by Colin Graham, at the Minnesota Opera, Gilda for ENO, Elvira I Puritani with Chelsea Opera Group, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem in Florence under Stefan Anton Reck, a repeat of her critically acclaimed performance of Madame Mao Nixon in China for the Greek National Opera, Catherine La jolie fille de Perth with Chelsea Opera Group, Britten’s War Requiem and Mahler’s 8th Symphony at the Three Choirs Festival and, most recently, Parasha in Stravinsky’s Mavra in Athens. She has just completed a highly successful and critically acclaimed run as Madam Butterfly in Anthony Minghella’s production at the London Coliseum, and plans include The
Creation in Dundee, Baroness Freimann Der Wildschultz at this year’s Buxton Festival and Marguerite Faust for the Minnesota Opera.
