Nationality British Record label Warner Classics | Years active From 1985 Movies Duke Bluebeard's Castle | |
Full Name Elizabeth Jane Scott Albums Boulez : Vocal & Orchestral Works - Apex Similar Pierre Boulez, Ensemble InterContemporain, Gunter Schneider, Neil Howlett, BBC National Orchestra | ||
Elizabeth Laurence (born Elizabeth Jane Scott, 22 November 1949, Harrogate, England) is a classical mezzo-soprano singer. She is known especially for her performances of 20th century operatic repertoire, and has created several operatic roles.
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Biography
She studied at Trinity College of Music, London.
In 1986, with Glyndebourne Touring Opera, she performed as Mallika (in Delibes' Lakmé), Jocasta (Stravinsky's Oedipus rex) and Nancy (Britten's Albert Herring). In 1987, with the same company, she created the role of Anna Arild in Nigel Osborne's opera The Electrification of the Soviet Union. In 1989, at the Paris Opéra, she created the part of Behemoth in York Höller's opera Der Meister und Margarita. In 1989, she made her Covent Garden debut as the Mezzo-soprano in the British première of Luciano Berio's Un re in ascolto. In 1991, at Covent Garden, she created the part of Lady de Hautdesert in Harrison Birtwistle's opera Gawain.
Her other operatic roles have included Cherubino (Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro), Erda (Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen), Judith (Béla Bartók, Duke Bluebeard's Castle), Concepción (Ravel, L'heure espagnole) and Carolina (Henze, Elegy for Young Lovers).
She has appeared several times at the BBC Proms. In 1986 she sang the solo part in the Proms premiere of Luciano Berio's Epifanie In 1987, she took the role of the Wood Dove in Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder in a performance directed by Pierre Boulez. In 1988, she sang in Debussy's cantata La damoiselle élue. That rarely-performed work specifies two female soloists; Ann Murray had been scheduled to be one, but was indisposed; and Laurence sang both parts at short notice.
She has been described as having a "warm-toned, flexible voice and handsome appearance".