Born in England, Linda Kitchen studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and at the National Opera Studio. Having served her apprenticeship at Glyndebourne Festival, she became a principal soprano at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where her roles include Oscar, Sophie Werther, Jemmy William Tell, Flora Knot Garden, Waldvogel and Papagena, working with Sir Bernard Haitink, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Sir Reginald Goodall & Michel Plasson. She has sung in Hong Kong (Strauss’s Sophie) and, in most major European opera houses, notably Tytania in Amsterdam, Drusilla in Munich, Susanna in Bordeaux, Jemmy in Geneva, Pamina and Euridice in Lisbon and Zerbinetta in Maastricht. Festival appearances include Aix-en-Provence (with William Christie), Edinburgh, Garsington, Istanbul (with Sir Charles Mackerras), Innsbruck and in Poland at the Wroclaw Canticans (with Ivor Bolton). Her many roles for Opera North include Susanna, Pamina, Cherubino and Magnolia Showboat which was a joint project with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Linda Kitchen has gained many accolades for her work with Welsh National Opera, especially for her Gretel, televised by Channel 4, Drusilla The Coronation of Poppea,shown by BBC 2 and for her notorious Despina. Linda has performed in recital with Malcolm Martineau and Julius Drake, and in concert with the CBSO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, Belgian Radio, London Mozart Players, Bournemouth Symphony, BBC Ulster, and with the London Sinfonietta.

Linda’s theatrical interest means she is now in demand as a director. Linda directed a haunting Hamlet. She devised and co-wrote Fast Forward Figaro, and her one-woman show, Linda in the Kitchen. In 2006, she directed her first opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail and has since directed Opera Factory’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Suor Angelica. For Southern Opera in Christchurch, Linda devised and directed Time Pieces which incorporated Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole. She has recently directed Lynn John’s play, The Smell of Strawberries and Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring for Auckland University. Future plans include The Magic Flute for Southern Opera.

ROSEMARY BARNES (Musical Director)

Rosie is one of New Zealand’s most respected resident pianists. Since returning in 1993 from almost three decades in London, she has appeared in recital with singers Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Donald McIntyre, Dame Malvina Major, Sally Burgess, Angela Brown, Simon O’Neill, Helen Medlyn, Patricia Wright, Carmel Carroll, Grant Dickson and David Griffiths, and with numerous instrumentalists including violinists Chuan Yun Li, David Nalden, Emil Chudnovsky and Miwako Abe, clarinettist Murray Khouri, and flautists Robert Aitken, Paul Edmund-Davies, Leonie Buyse and Elena Duran.  Additionally, she gives dozens of recitals every year with emerging young performers.

Teaching and coaching have always been a large part of Rosemary’s career. Having coached young singers and pianists at Morley College and later at the Royal College of Music whilst in London, she directed the postgraduate opera diploma at the University of Auckland from 1993-99.  Nowadays Rosemary tutors chamber music and voice students there, as well as coaching Emerging Artists for NBR New Zealand Opera, being music director of Opera Factory, and adjudicating voice and piano. In the 2000 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Rosemary received an MNZM for services to music.

ELIZABETH WHITING (Costume Design)

Elizabeth has been designing and making costumes for dance, theatre and opera in New Zealand for the last twenty years. Her work includes work for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Verge and Sweet Smashing Vixens and La Boheme , Falstaff. Marriage of Figaro, Barber of Seville, Cosi fan Tutti and Carmen for NBR New Zealand Opera, and Auckland Theatre Company’s Cabaret, Into the Woods, Caligula and Equus. She is passionately keen on the concept of a creative team coming together to produce a work more wonderful than each individual member could produce. Elizabeth runs her own company and at present is closely associated with Auckland Theatre Company and the NBR New Zealand Opera.

MORAG ATCHISON (Sandrina)

Morag is one of New Zealand’s leading young sopranos.  She began her studies at the University of Auckland with the late Beatrice Webster MBE and then went on to postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London with Alison Pearce and Antony Saunders.  She is the winner of an ABRSM PG Scholarship and the Madeline Finden Award, a Samling Scholar, the recipient of a Creative NZ grant, finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Competition and a prize winner in the Royal Over-Seas League’s International Music Competition

Operatic roles include First Lady, Magic Flute (NBR NZ Opera); Blumenmädchen, Parsifal (NZSO, International Festival of the Arts); Donna Elvira, Don Giovanni with Sir Colin Davis (London Royal Schools’ Opera); Annina, La Traviata (English Touring Opera); La Ciesca, Gianni Schicchi (Aspen Festival, USA); La Feu, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Limburgs Symphonie Orkest, The Netherlands).

Concert engagements include Beethoven’s concert aria Ah! perfido with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra; Missa Pacifica, Hamilton (World Premier), Carmina Burana, and Haydn’s Nelson Mass (Auckland Choral); a Mozart concert with The Orpheus Choir and Wellington Sinfonia; Handel Arias with AK Barok; Brahms Requiem, Matthew Passion & Easter Oratorio (Bach Musica); Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (London & Aspen); Vivaldi Gloria with Sir David Willcocks (Royal Albert Hall and Venice); Mater Gloriosa in Mahler’s 8th Symphony (RAH); the world premiere of Peter Scholes’s Requiem (Auckland Chamber Orchestra) and Christmas Day 2005, she was the soloist in The First Communion broadcast live on TV One from Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral. This year Morag will sing Sandrina in Mozart’s opera La Finta Giardiniera at the Hamilton Gardens Festival for Opera Unleashed, Ah! Perfido with the Manukau City Orchestra, Elijah with Bach Musica, Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man with the Christchurch City Choir and Messiah with Auckland Choral.

Morag teaches voice at the University of Auckland as well as teaching singing in a number of Auckland schools (Westlake Girls’ High, St Cuthbert’s College, St Kentigern College). She is a vocal tutor for the NZ Youth Choir, NZ Secondary Student’s Choir, Auckland Chamber Choir, has a busy private studio and is a sort-after tutor for vocal and choral workshops around the country.

DEREK HILL (Count Belfiore)

Derek completed his university studies at McGill University in Montreal Canada graduating with high distinction in voice. Since his return to New Zealand in 2004 he has appeared in productions with virtually every opera company in the country. With NBR New Zealand Opera he has appeared as Normanno in Lucia di Lammermoor, the First Priest/Amoured Man in Die Zauberflöte, Gastone in La Traviata and most recently as the understudy went on as Steva in Jenufa. For Southern Opera he performed Gonzalve in L’Heure Espagnole on their inaugural tour. With Canterbury Opera he covered the role of Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor. With The Hamilton Garden Opera he has performed Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and Turridu in Cavalleria Rusticana and with Opera Otago he sang Mr. Ford in Salieri’s Falstaff.
 
On the concert platform Derek has performed with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra as the tenor soloist in Gareth Farr’s work Te Papa for the celebration of the museum’s tenth anniversary. With the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra in the role of second jew in their acclaimed concert performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome. He has also sung with the Auckland Choral Society and next month he will sing with the Manukau Symphony Orchestra
 
Derek is a Freemasons Opera Scholar and is proudly supported by The Freemasons Roskill Foundation and currently studies with renowned New Zealand tenor Patrick Power.

BONAVENTURE ALLAN-MOETAUA (Podestà)

Bonaventure completed his Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance at the University of Auckland, in 2007, where he studied under Glenses Blake, Te Oti Rakana and Robert Wiremu. He was awarded the Iosefa Enari Scholarship award for the support and development of a Pacific Island opera singer in 2004, as well as University Cultural Blues Awards from 2004 to 2006. Whilst at university, Bonaventure was a member of the New Zealand Youth Choir, under the direction of Dr Karen Grylls, touring nationally and internationally during 2004 to 2007. He was also a member of the Auckland Chamber Choir, formally known as the University Singers. Bonaventure was a finalist in the 2007 and 2008 New Zealand Aria Competitions.

Since graduating from university, Bonaventure has been working with Operatunity and Class Act Opera, performing regularly around New Zealand. In 2008, Bonaventure played the role of Tamino in Die Zauberflö, touring with Class Act Opera. This was followed by Opera Otago’s Cosi Fan Tutte, where he played Ferrando. During 2009, he will perform the role of Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte with Southern Opera as well as Nemorino in Class Act Opera’s production of L’Elisir d’Amore.

ALICE GOWER (Arminda)

In 2000, Alice began studies with Barbara Nichols of Taupo gaining her ATCL – invited to study Masters at Waikato University – completed Masters in Music in 2005 with First Class Honours – career highlights include, 2006 singing the lead role of Mary in “The Prodigal Child”, by local composer Michael Williams – principal roles of Gabriel & Eve in The Creation for Cantando Choir, member of the NBR NZ Opera Chorus – title role in “Les Mamelles des Tiresias” with the Opera Factory. Auditioned successfully to sing Musetta in La Bohème in Rome in mid 2006. Offered the opportunity to sing in Austria in August 2008, but family comes first as Alice has chosen to remain in NZ with husband Marcus and their brand new baby, Grace. 2007 Alice gave concerts in Cape Town, South Africa, and Lusaka, Zambia, to great reviews, performing regularly in concerts around the North Island, including at Opera in the Pa in Rotorua, principal soloist at Rotorua’s Carols by Candelight. One of two soloists selected to sing with Sir Donald MacIntyre in Auckland. A finalist in the prestigious Lockwood Aria, and winner of the Regional Aria award in 2005 and 2006. 2006 3rd in the North Shore Aria and winner of a scholarship to attend the NZ Opera School, 2007. Winner of the prestigious Recital class in Napier and 3rd place in the Napier Aria in 2007.

EMMA ROXBURGH (Ramiro)

Emma began her singing training at Otago University and went on to study in the UK at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, graduating with a Professional Performance Diploma in 1998. (PPRNCM) She has performed regularly on the concert platform both in New Zealand and Britain, is a member of the Chapmann Tripp Opera Chorus and is also one of NBR NZ Opera’s current Resident Artists. Roles include Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro for wellington City Opera, Susanna in the same opera for Opera Factory and Jano in last year’s acclaimed NBR NZ Opera’s production of Jenufa. Covers for the same company have included Siebel in Faust and Second Lady in Magic Flute.

EVELYNE WATERS (Serpetta)

Eve is a Sir Edmond Hillary scholar at Waikato University, completed a BMus-Honours with first class honours – currently completing a post-graduate diploma in Linguistics. Soloist in University concerts, Museum concerts, the Hamilton Girls High School concert series, soloist in all three of David Griffiths annual productions. Performed with Cantando Choir, Hamilton – a lead in The Opera Factory’s production of The Bewitched Child by Maurice Ravel.

In 2007 a member of the Chapman Tripp NBR New Zealand Opera Chorus, awarded first place for the regional prize at the New Zealand aria competition, sang with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra.
Attended the NZ Opera School in Wanganui three times working with top coaches and vocal teachers. 2008 Evelyne chosen as the Associate Artist for the Hamilton Civic Choir – one of six finalists for the 2008 Becroft North Shore Aria competition – soloist for the opening ceremony of the New Zealand Harmonising Barbershop National Competition held in Founders Theatre in May 2008. Future engagements include 6th and 7th of September with Hamilton Civic Choir, 14th November concert with Malvina Major.

DANIEL O’CONNOR (Nardo)

Daniel (24) started singing while attending Wellington High School, where he was a member of the High Renaissance choir and learned from Rosie Salas. Until the age of 17 he wanted to be either a double bass player or a professional guitarist. From 2001-2003 he attended the Victoria Music Academy, a pre-University programme for young musicians during, which time he was in the chorus of Opera Victoria’s 2003 Orpheus in the Underworld. Daniel studied Voice with Emily Mair at Victoria University in 2004, attaining a BMus. During this time sang parts in Farquhar’s Enchanted Island, had a principal role in John Gaye’s Polly, and was in masterclasses with Harry Peeters and Malcolm Martineau. Daniel has been a member of the Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus since 2006, is an intern with New Zealand Opera as part of the 2008/09 PwC NBR New Zealand Opera Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist programme, and is currently taking lessons from Margaret Medlyn. In March, Daniel will appear as Badger/Parson in NIMBY’s produtions of The Cunning Little Vixen, and later on this year as the Captain in NBR New Zealand Opera’s Eugene Onegin.