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Katrina Waters holds a Bachelor of Music and a Post-Graduate Diploma from the Canberra School of Music, graduating with the concerto prize and performing Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder with orchestra under the baton of Nicolette Fraillon.  Prizes from the Marianne Mathy competition enabled Katrina to study in London at the Royal College of Music where her position in the Opera School was funded by the ABRSM.

 

Mentorship and performances with the English National Opera’s OperaWorks programme for developing artists, the Brittten-Pears Young Artist Programme and membership of Malcolm Martineau’s inaugural residency at CREAR in Scotland have all had a major impact on Katrina’s development as a singer. 

 

Roles performed include Mercedes (Carmen), Maddelena (Rigoletto), Meg Page (Falstaff), Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), Forester'sWife/Owl (The Cunning Little Vixen), Mère Marie (Les Dialogues des Carmelites), Sally (A Hand of Bridge), Sorceress (Dido and Aeneas); Mozart roles include: Dorabella (Cosi), Marcellina (Figaro), Third Lady & Second Lady (Magic Flute); Britten roles include: Bianca (The Rape of Lucretia), Nancy  & Florence Pike (Albert Herring), Moppet & Goose (Paul Bunyan), Mrs Grose (The Turn of the Screw).  Katrina’s operatic roles have led her to perform in most parts of the British Isles and Brittany, France.  Having performed on the high seas as a guest entertainer on P&O cruise liners Katrina can also claim to have sung in India, Egypt, China and even Antactica.

 

Mentorship from the Head of the ENO Young Artist Programme encouraged Katrina to add soprano and zwischenfach roles to her repertoire.  In order to make this repertoire change Katrina had a period of intense study in Berlin with Liane Keegan supported by the Finzi Trust award for New Musical Directions. This experience was detailed in the blog: aussiesingerinberlin.wordpress.com.

 

Since returning from Berlin, Katrina has been adding Slavic soprano roles of Rusalka, Marenka and Tatyana to her repertoire, she also coached the role of Leonora (Fidelio) with the late dramatic soprano Elizabeth Connell. 

 

Passionate about collaboration, in London Katrina garnered a reputation for creating new roles with living composers and librettists and as a singer on opera outreach programmes with the English National Opera’s Bayliss Programme and The Royal Opera House.  Highlights include working with LiveArtShow to bring the sadistic care home nurse Cherie to life (and death by machete) in Manga Sister, playing the President of the USA in Manifest Destiny (an opera about a terrorism), and introducing inner-city and at-risk teens to the operatic voice through Dido’s Lament (Purcell) and using this as a springboard for their discussions and plays on suicide and grief.

 

Katrina is delighted to be back in Australia and performing the role of Concepçion in Ravel’s comedy L’Heure Espagnole with Lyric Opera.