YVONNE LEA was born in Cheshire and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music where she won the Curtis Gold Medal; The National Opera Studio after receiving the Peter Stuyvesant Award; and in Paris after winning the Miriam Licette Scholarship. She made her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival in Die Zauberflöte, and immediately won the Glyndebourne Touring Opera Singer’s Award. Subsequent roles there included Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Linette in L’Amour des Trois Oranges, and Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

She has made regular appearances with the major British opera companies and abroad. Her roles have included Erda, Flosshilde and Rossweise in The City of Birmingham Touring Opera “Ring” Cycle, Hippolyta at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and in Paris, Lyon, Montpelier and Caen. She has also sung at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in Der Rosenkavalier under Sir Georg Solti, and in Die Zauberflöte as Third Lady. The latter role she also sang in Bordeaux for the opening of its newly refurbished theatre.

Additional roles have included Grimgerde in Die Walküre for Scottish Opera, Suzuki in Madame Butterfly and Mother Goose in The Rake’s Progress for Welsh National Opera, Madame Larina in Eugene Onegin for Opera Ireland, Margaret in Wozzek for Opera North, Bianca in The Rape of Lucretia at the Cheltenham Festival, and Suzuki at the Royal Albert Hall. Most recently she has sung Grimgerde in Scottish Opera’s acclaimed “Ring” Cycle at the Edinburgh Festival.

Yvonne appears regularly on the concert platform both at home and abroad, and she has recorded Malcolm Williamson’s Six English Lyrics with the Scottish Baroque Ensemble for Abbey Records.