Middlesbrough-born soprano, Helen Bailey, enjoys a busy schedule of opera, oratorio, and recital engagements. She currently studies with Rachel Nicholls and Paul Plummer. Helen is a graduate of Royal Academy Opera, where she studied under the tutelage of Elizabeth Ritchie and Jonathan Papp, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust, a Coutts bursary, and a D'Oyly Carte scholarship.
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Helen has sung for Buxton International Opera Festival, Opera Up Close, Bath Festival Opera, Blackheath Halls Opera, Kentish Opera, Ryedale Festival, The Music Troupe, Red Earth Opera, Rose Opera, Academy of Ancient Music, Opera Rara, and Pop-Up Opera.
Her principal roles include Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), First Lady (The Magic Flute), Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito), Mother (Amahl and the Night Visitors), Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), Micaëla (Carmen), and Anne Truelove (The Rake's Progress). She has covered roles including Elizabeth I (Mary Queen of Scots), Giovanna (Giovanna d'arco), Leonore (Fidelio), and the title role in Verdi's Alzira. Helen appears regularly as soprano soloist for the Compton and Shawford, Botley, Eastleigh, Dover, Ember, Folkestone, and Sutton Valence choral societies, Thanet Festival Choir, The Seventy Singers, Maidstone Wind Symphony, and Voices for Hospices. She has performed in opera gala concerts for Wrotham Festival, Daventry Choral Society, Pleasure Dome Theatre Company, Wokingham Choral Society, Rose Opera, and in St Martin in the Fields. |
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Favourite works include Handel's The Messiah, Elgar's The Spirit of England, Haydn's The Creation, Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle, Mozart's Mass in C minor, and Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony.
In addition to performing in masterclasses with Susan Bullock, John Copley, Robin Leggate, Dennis O'Neill CBE, and the late Robert Tear CBE, Helen attended the North Sea Vocal Academy in Denmark in 2011, where she received tuition from Audrey Hyland and Ryland Davies. Helen was a finalist in the 2013 Association of English Singers and Speakers competition, was awarded the Ernest Butcher prize in 2011, and in 2015, she received the inaugural Buxton Festival Young Artists Bursary, generously supported by the Directors Circle, to be awarded to an outstanding member of the Buxton Festival Chorus. |
Photo courtesy of Laurent Compagnon
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