Trainees 2009/10

Sopranos
Elizabeth Llewellyn
Sadhbh Dennedy
Anna Devin
Madeleine Pierard

Mezzo-sopranos
Sara Gonzalez-Saavedra
Raquel Luis

Tenors
John Pierce
Nicky Spence

Baritones
Gerard Collett
Joa Rasmus Helgesson

Bass
John Molloy

Repetiteurs
Marie-Elise Boyer
Cameron Burns
Jean-Paul Pruna

Meeta Raval soprano

Recipient of the INDEPENDENT OPERA Vocal Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music 2008.
Meeta Raval was born in England 1983. She graduated with a bachelor of music first class honours degree from the Guildhall school of music and drama and a diploma of distinction in performance from the Royal Academy of Music. She studies with Janice Chapman and is currently a young artist at the National Opera Studio. In August 2006 she was chosen to participate in the Solti Accademia di Bel Canto held in Castiglione, Italy. Whilst there, she sang in masterclasses by Mirella Freni and performed with the Orchestra Città di Grosseto at the Salone De Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence; she has also participated in Master classes with Anne Murray and José Cura. Meeta is the winner of the Dame Eva Turner Competition for ‘a Soprano with dramatic potential’. The Musician’s Benevolent Fund awarded Meeta with the 2006 Maidment Scholarship and the Sybill Tutton Award 2007. In September 2008 Meeta was the inaugural prize winner of both the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) Pavarotti Prize and the British Youth Opera (BYO) Basil Turner prize. 

With RAM Opera Meeta has performed La Contessa in John Copley’s production of Le nozze di Figaro conducted by Sir Colin Davis, Witch in Hänsel und Gretel conducted by Sian Edwards and directed by Jonathan Ramster and Amaranta (La Fedelta Premiata) conducted by Trevor Pinnock and directed by Alessandro Talvi. Recent performances include Jonathan Harvey’s Song Offerings conducted by Dominic Wheeler which was performed in association with the South Bank Centre to mark Messiaen’s centenary, a BBC radio broadcast of Discovering Figaro, a Viennese New Year’s Day concert at St. Martins-In-The–Fields and Strauss’ four last songs with the City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. In the summer of 2008 Meeta sang the role of Magda in Puccini’s La Rondine with BYO and in 2009, Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen in Banff, Canada. Future plans include her début performance at the English National Opera singing Erste Blumen Mädchen in Wagner’s Parsifal.