Campbell, Elizabeth

mezzo soprano

One of Australia’s most distinguished mezzo-sopranos, Elizabeth Campbell has been at the forefront of music-making in Australia since the early 1980s.

A graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Elizabeth Campbell was awarded a Music Students Overseas Study Foundation Scholarship and an Australian Musical Foundation grant for study in London and Europe. She was a finalist in the Munich International Competition and winner of the Elly Ameling Lieder prize in the s’Hertogenbosch Singing Competition. In 1985 she represented Australia in the Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff and in 1997 she was awarded the Bayreuth Scholarship. International appearances include Messiah at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden under Sir Charles Mackerras, a tour of the United States with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stuart Challender and recitals in Jakarta for Musica Viva. She gave highly-acclaimed recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Den Haag and Antwerp; performed with the BBC Singers as well as making recordings for the BBC and Dutch Radio VARA.

Elizabeth Campbell made her operatic debut as Carmen with the West Australian Opera in 1983 and since then she has featured regularly with the state companies and Opera Australia. Her extensive operatic repertoire includes leading roles in Cosi fan tutte, Eugene Onegin, Xerxes, Giulio Cesare, Alcina, La Clemenza di Tito, Boris Godonov, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Les Troyens, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Werther, Hansel and Gretel, Il Trovatore, La Forza del Destino, Lulu, Peter Grimes, The Turn of the Screw, Die Fledermaus, L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Capriccio, Rigoletto, Andrea Chenier and Madama Butterfly for which she won two Green Room Awards. She performed the roles of Fricka and Waltraute in Adelaide’s acclaimed Ring Cycles in 1998 and 2004, and won a Helpmann Award for her portrayal of Mrs de Rocher in the Australian premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking in 2003.

Elizabeth Campbell is also one of Australia’s leading concert artists and recitalists. She appears frequently with all the leading symphony orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Musica Viva, all the major choirs, concert organisations and festivals in Australia and New Zealand. She has performed under conductors, Sir Charles Mackerras, Charles Dutoit, Sir Edward Downes, Sir David Willcocks, Edo de Waart, Christopher Hogwood, Richard Bonynge and Richard Hickox, and in recital with Geoffrey Parsons, Anthony Fogg, Stephen McIntyre, David Miller and Sharolyn Kimmorley. She has worked extensively in the field of Australian music with repertoire including works by Bauld, Butterley, Grainger, Sculthorpe, Koehne, Edwards and Sitsky. She created leading roles in world premieres of Richard Mills’ operas Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and Batavia and Moya Henderson’s Lindy.

Her recordings include Banquo’s Buried (Vol 1 of Anthology of Australian Song series) for 2MBS-FM; Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony, Graham Koehne’s Three Poems of Byron, Moya Henderson’s Lindy and Elgar’s Sea Pictures all for ABC Classics; Messiah on the Walsingham label; The Australian Opera’s Giulio Cesare , Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and Hansel and Gretel available on video and Margaret Sutherland’s The Woman and the Child on Tall Poppies (TP116).