John Savournin John Savournin

Euan McDonald

Scottish Tenor, Euan McDonald, recently graduated with an MMus in Vocal Performance from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is a Samling Artist. This summer he joins the Young Artist programmes of both Garsington Opera and Waterperry Opera.

Euan recently performed Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Lyric Opera Studio Weimar. His concert highlights include Rossini’s 'Petite Messe solennelle' and Britten’s 'Rejoice in the Lamb' at the Edinburgh International Festival. He has performed the tenor solo in 'Mozart’s Requiem', 'Haydn’s Creation', 'Handel’s Messiah', and an upcoming performance of 'Britten’s Saint Nicolas'.

Euan is a Leeds Lieder Young Artist with pianist Mujie Yan and within the RCS was the winner of the Elgar Spedding Memorial Lieder Prize and the Hugh S Roberton Prize for Scottish Singing.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Ceci Calf

Ceci is a set and costume designer based in London. She trained at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and has since worked across the UK and Europe.

Her Set & Costume designs include: Farm Hall (Jermyn Street, Theatre Royal Bath/ UK Tour/ West End); Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare Theatre, Washington DC); Stiletto (Charing Cross Theatre); The Barber of Seville (Waterperry Opera Festival); The Autobiography of a Cad, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello (Watermill Theatre); Our Cosmic Dust and HIR starring Felicity Huffman (Park Theatre); The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas and A Skull In Connemara (Dailes Teātris Riga, Latvia); A Christmas Carol (Opera Holland Park); Love & Information (Clapham Omnibus); Breeding (Kings Head); Under The Black Rock (Arcola); Orlando (Jermyn Street); Warrior Queens (Sadler’s Wells); Tapped (Theatre503 & UK Tour);To Have And To Hold (The Hope Theatre); Rocky Road (Jermyn Street/ Stream.Theatre); One Million Tiny Plays About Britain (Jermyn Street/ Watermill Theatre); Five Green Bottles (Sherman Theatre); Cheer and Mydidae (The Other Room); Not Now, Yes So I Said Yes; How To Survive An Apocalypse, Not Quite Jerusalem and The Wind of Heaven (Finborough Theatre); Twelfth Night (Kew Gardens); The Cut (LAMDA & Lion And Unicorn); Waiting for Anya and The Mozart Question (Barn Theatre, Cirencester) and Yellow Moon (LAMDA).

Associate design credits include: A Streetcar Named Desire (Sheffield Crucible); Macbeth starring Ralph Fiennes (UK Tour).

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Hilary Cronin

Winner of First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2021 London Handel International Singing Competition, Hilary Cronin has collaborated with conductors including Kristian Bezuidenhout, Harry Bicket, Harry Christophers, Laurence Cummings, Christian Curnyn, Maxim Emelyanychev, John Eliot Gardiner, Stephen Layton, Paul McCreesh, András Schiff, Dinis Sousa and Peter Whelan. Next season, she makes her debut for MusikTheater an der Wien, singing the title role in Cesti’s L’Orontea. Upcoming engagements further include Alexander’s Feast at the BBC Proms and Iole in Hercules on tour with The English Concert, as well as projects with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Springhead Constellation.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Louise Fuller

Louise is a graduate of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, the Royal College of Music International Opera School, the Premiere Opera Training Programme in Banff, Canada, British Youth Opera, The London Song Festival, Wigmore Hall’s Academy of French song, (in partnership with the École Normale de Musique de Paris), and the Alvarez Young Artist Programme with Garsington Opera. She is a Samling Artist. Louise has performed as the soprano soloist with choral societies and music festivals all over the country. Career highlights include Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music at Buckingham Palace under John Wilson for King Charles, and her debut at Wigmore Hall, London.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Molly Owen

I trained as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Whilst there we had the opportunity to direct some scenes from the Oresteia which gave me my first taste of directing. However, it wasn’t until I saw Jenufa in March of last year that fell completely in love with the world of opera and had an epiphany that opera too must have directors. I had my first assisting job at the beginning of the year on the Flying Dutchman in Norway and am so excited to take part in the Waterperry Young Artists programme.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Kira Kaplan

Kira Kaplan was a NOS Young Artist working closely with and performing at ENO, Scottish Opera, WNO, Opera North, The Royal Opera, and Glyndebourne. She is a three-time Regional Finalist and District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Council Auditions. Role highlights include Alcina Alcina, Emily Webb Our Town, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte, Madame Herz Impresario, Le Feu L’enfant et les sortilèges, and Anne Truelove The Rake’s Progress.

Kira recently made her Opera Holland Park debut as the lead Sylvia Lawless in the world premiere of A Matter of Misconduct in June 2025. While an Emerging Artist with Scottish Opera she has also appeared as Miss Wordsworth Albert Herring and Norina Don Pasquale. Future engagements include Musetta La Boheme (cover and all access performances) and Susanna The Marriage of Figaro.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Max Mason

Max is a recent Cambridge University graduate, where he was elected a Senior Scholar in 2024. As a College Choral Scholar, he was involved in performing new commissions as a part of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, and a recital of Duruflé’s Requiem at the Duomo di Milano. After a short acting career, playing in the London debut of Friel’s Fathers and Sons at the Donmar Warehouse, he has since moved into opera. In Cambridge, recent directorial credits include Semele, The Magic Flute, and (in his own original translation) Orpheus in the Underworld. His original operetta—an adaptation of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market—was performed at Trinity College, Cambridge in 2023. His remarks on rehearsing Handel’s Saul in Cambridge is forthcoming in publication in Opera Quarterly, edited by James Garrett.

Max is delighted to be making his professional directing debut here at Waterperry.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Ellie Neate

Ellie Neate trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her operatic roles include First Daughter Akhnaten, Celia Iolanthe, cover Mabel The Pirates of Penzance, cover Elsie Maynard The Yeomen of the Guard (ENO), Papagena The Magic Flute Lite, cover Tytania A Midsummer Night's Dream, (Opera North), Sylviane The Merry Widow (Scottish Opera and Opera Holland Park) Lisa La sonnambula, Elisa Il re pastore, Cleopatra Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra (Buxton Festival), Galatea Acis and Galatea, Milica Svadba, Maria Bertram Mansfield Park (Waterperry Opera Festival), Cunegonde Candide (Blackheath Halls) and Gretel Hansel and Gretel (BYO).

In concert she has performed at Oxford Lieder Festival, was broadcast live from the Wigmore Hall for the BBC, with the London Symphony Chorus at Barbican Hall, for ENO Does Eurovision, and recorded the soundtrack for the Disney+ television series Rivals.

Upcoming performances include Zerlina Don Giovanni at Teatro Lorenzo da Ponte, Vittorio Veneto, and her studio opera recording debut as Lisette in La Rondine with Opera Rara and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in late 2025.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Sarah Winn

Mezzo-soprano Sarah Winn recently completed her time as a Young Artist at the National Opera Studio (2024/25). At the Studio Sarah worked with leading companies including Glyndebourne, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera and Opera North. Originally from Johannesburg, she completed her Bachelor of music at the Queensland Conservatorium and a Masters of Music the Royal Northern College of Music. Praised for her comedic flair and rich characterisation, Sarah’s roles include The Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos) Béatrice (Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict), Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), and Julia Bertram (Mansfield Park). Sarah is also a keen concert and oratorio soloist, performing with numerous orchestras and choral societies across the UK.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

James Micklethwaite

James was introduced to opera when, as a child, he performed in several productions with Opera North. Whilst studying for a degree in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, he was a member of The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, after which he studied at the Royal College of Music. Highlights include: Tchaplitsky The Queen of Spades, Grimoaldo (Cover) Rodelinda, Delmonte Un giorno di regno, and Flute (Cover) A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all as an Alvarez Emerging Artist for Garsington Opera; Tenor soloist for the Really Big Chorus’ Messiah from Scratch in the Albert Hall; Gastone (Cover) The Dead City (English National Opera) and Slender Sir John in Love (British Youth Opera at Opera Holland Park). James was the tenor soloist for Waterperry’s 2024 Messiah tour, and he was a member of the chorus and Remendado (Cover) in their 2023 production of Carmen. He is delighted to be joining them again this summer.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Masimba Ushe

Masimba Ushe holds a Master’s in Vocal Studies from the Royal Academy of Music.

He has performed roles including Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Bartolo (Le Nozze di Figaro), Don Basilio (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Colline (La Boheme), Alcade (La Forza del Destino), The Keeper of the Madhouse (The Rake’s Progress) and Superintendent Budd (Albert Herring).

He has been bass chorus in Porgy and Bess (Grange Park Opera), Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe and Utopia Limited (National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company), Acis and Galatea (Opera Holland Park), Manon Lescaut, The Rake’s Progress, Il Viaggio a Reims covering Don Prudenzio, Lucrezia Borgia covering Gubetta, (English Touring Opera), Kurt Weill’s Love Life (Opera North). He was the Muddier in The Wish Gatherer and Benjamin Disraeli in The Great Stink (English Touring Opera).

He performed Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia as a 2024 Opera Holland Park Young Artist.

He has recently been Lorenzo in English Touring Opera’s The Capulets & The Montagues.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Jamie Woollard

British Bass Jamie Woollard was a Jette Parker Artist at the Royal Opera House for the 2023 to 2025 seasons. Roles at ROH in these seasons included Zuniga in Carmen, Zaretsky in a new production of Eugene Onegin, Count Ceprano in Rigoletto, Dumas in Andrea Chenier, and Sciarrone in Tosca, and cover roles included Timur (Turandot), King of Egypt (Aida), Zebul (Jephtha), Angelotti (Tosca) and Colline (La bohème). Jamie has performed as a soloist at Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Jamie was a Jerwood Young Artist with Glyndebourne Festival in 2023, where he played Thierry in Poulenc's Dialogues des carmélites. He is an alumnus of the Royal College of Music Opera Studio, where he performed Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Immigration Officer (Flight), Il Re (La bella dormente nel bosco), and Jupiter (Orpheus in the Underworld). In the 2025/26 Season Jamie returns to Glyndebourne as Snug in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, to the Royal Opera as Count Ceprano in Rigoletto, and makes his debut at Opera North as Antonio in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Sophie Goldrick

London-born mezzo-soprano Sophie Goldrick grew up in Sydney, Australia. She trained in acting at Theatre Nepean, Sydney, before completing vocal studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, where her roles included Nancy Albert Herring and Arsamenes Serse.

Sophie is a full-time member of English National Opera, where roles include Moppett Paul Bunyan, New Ofglen The Handmaid’s Tale, the Girl The Midsummer Marriage and Mrs Thompson It’s a Wonderful Life!. She has also covered numerous productions for the company.

Elsewhere, she has sung Ericlea and Pisandro Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Diana La Calisto for Longborough Festival Opera; Baba the Turk (cover) The Rake’s Progress for The Grange Festival; Dinah Trouble in Tahiti for Stage Left Project; Ruth The Pirates of Penzance for Merry Opera Company; Flora La Traviata and Kate Pinkerton Madama Butterfly for West Green House Opera; Alcina Orlando Paladino for Opera Purpur; Pitti-Sing (cover) The Mikado for Scottish Opera; Emilia Otello for the Al Bustan Festival; Thérèse Intermezzo and Ramiro (cover) La finta giardiniera for Buxton International Festival; and Carmen Carmen for Opera on Location and Focus Opera.

Later this season at ENO, Sophie covers Tisbe in Julia Burbach’s new staging of La Cenerentola, and will sing First Mother in Dead Man Walking.

Sophie creates new opera and theatre through her company Shadow Opera. Their latest podcast opera Veritable Michael is now available to stream. She is also proud to be Principal of Stagecoach Shirley, supporting young people in discovering creativity, confidence and joy through the performing arts.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Simon Mascarenhas Carter

British tenor Simon Mascarenhas Carter studied at the Royal College of Music under the tutelage of Patricia Rozario OBE, with the support of a Leverhulme Arts scholarship. In the upcoming summer season, Simon will make his debut performing Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Waterperry Opera Festival. Simon has previously performed at the Waterperry Opera Festival as a Young Artist in 2024 and is greatly looking forward to returning this summer. He also joins the Glyndebourne chorus for their productions of Wagner’s Parsifal and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. In the 2024/2025 season, Simon covered the role of Ferrando in Così fan tutte at the inaugural Da Ponte Opera Festival and performed in the RCM International Opera Studio’s productions of Lehár’s The Merry Widow as Raoul de St. Brioche and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro as Don Curzio.

Simon also maintains a busy schedule as a concert soloist with recent highlights including Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, Britten’s Saint Nicolas, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, Stölzel’s Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld, and Handel’s Messiah. In recital, Simon enjoys regular collaboration with guitarist Mark Dangerfield, most recently the two performed a programme of William Walton and Manuel de Falla at the Royal Albert Hall Elgar room as part of their classical coffee morning series.

Prior to joining the Royal College of Music in 2023, Simon worked as a hospital pharmacist and sang as a lay clerk in the choir of King's College, Cambridge. Highlights include performing with the Academy of Ancient Music, being involved in a CD recording of a new work, ‘The Street’ by Nico Muhly, and singing in the annual Christmas and Easter televised BBC broadcasts. As an undergraduate, Simon studied Pharmacy at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where he held choral scholarships at St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Cathedral and subsequently at Norwich Cathedral. He participated in multiple broadcasts, concerts with the Britten Sinfonia, and two CD recordings, ‘Evening Hymn’ and ‘Britten: Sacred Choral Works’, in the latter of which he features as a soloist. Outside of singing, Simon can often be found playing squash, a passion he has maintained since childhood, where he played for his home county of Cambridgeshire. He also enjoys cooking, gardening, and windsurfing.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Ana-Carmen Balestra

Dutch-Argentinian soprano Ana-Carmen Balestra is a Guildhall Opera Course graduate with distinction and made her Wigmore Hall recital debut in April 2024 after winning the Silver medal. Currently she is a Young Artist at the National Opera Studio, she has performed with Welsh National Opera and Scottish Opera, and joined a Royal Opera House masterclass with Freddie De Tommaso. Upcoming highlights include Micaëla in Carmen with Opera2Day & B’Rock (2025) and her debut with Nederlandse Reisopera in The Cunning Little Vixen (2026). She is also one of the four finalists in the prestigious competition; Dutch Classical Talent 2025/2026, where she will tour in the 14 major halls in the Netherlands with a solo recital, blending diverse styles into vivid, personal interpretations.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Charlotte Politi

Charlotte Politi is a French-Italian conductor based in London. A very versatile conductor, Charlotte enjoys woking in opera, ballet and symphonic concerts. In recent seasons, she has worked with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre National de Metz, Orchestra da Camera del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and others. She recently made her debut at the Semperoper Dresden and has conducted regularly for the Royal Ballet and Opera in London, where she is associate conductor since 2023.

After studying piano and musicology in Florence, Charlotte studied conducting in Germany, at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, and in the United States, at the University of Michigan. She has also taken part in prestigious conducting masterclasses such as the Italian Opera Academy with Riccardo Muti, and Conductors’ Academy of the Tonhalle Zürich, under the guidance of Paavo Järvi. She was appointed Assistant conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (2022-23) and Fellow Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (2023-24).

At the beginning of her conducting career, Charlotte conducted several operas, including Le Nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte. This year, she’s thrilled to conduct Don Giovanni at the Waterperry Opera Festival.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Gabriela Comeau Gort

Gabriela Comeau Gort is a Canadian mezzo-soprano, whose performances span Spain, England, Italy, Chile, and North America.

Gabriela’s past opera productions / scenes include Hänsel und Gretel (Humperdinck), Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Britten), The Fairy Queen (Purcell), and Venus and Adonis (Blow). Gabriela has been the alto soloist in Vivaldi's Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, and Mozart's Coronation Mass and Requiem.

Gabriela has recently completed an intensive MMus at the RNCM, under the tutelage of Mary Plazas. She will pursue a PGDip at the RNCM in the fall. She holds a BMus from the University of Ottawa, studying with John Avey.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Jake Wiltshire

Jake designs extensively both in the UK and Worldwide. His work has been seen with major opera companies and festivals including The Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera, New Zealand Opera, Savonlinna Opera Festival, Garsington Opera and St. Galler Festspiele, as well as nearly all of the UK’s top music conservatoires. Internationally, he’s worked throughout Europe, North America, and Asia in a variety of venues from traditional proscenium arch theatres to unique site-specific spaces. In 2009 he was made an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (HonARAM) and in 2023 he was nominated for a Canadian Dora Mavor Moore Award for outstanding lighting design.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Jennifer Gregory

Jennifer Gregory is a London based designer originally from the Peak District. She studied Costume Design for stage and screen at Wimbledon College of Art where she achieved a first class degree and was awarded the Ann Holloway Prize for Costume Design.

Since graduating in 2015 Jennifer has worked on a range of productions including: dance, musicals, plays and opera. Her latest credits are ‘Dream Lovers’ at Stanley Arts 2025, ‘The Creation’ Scherzo Ensemble 2024, ‘The Song of Home’ Outland Opera 2023, the double bill of ‘Acis and Galatea’ and ‘Dido and Aeneas’ for Waterperry Opera Festival 2023, ‘Betty Blue Eyes’ Mountview 2020, ‘Innate Beauty’ Royal Opera House 2019 and ‘Roles’ Victoria and Albert Museum 2018.

Associate Design work includes ‘Redlands’ Chichester Festival 2024, ‘Burlesque’ Manchester Opera House and Theatre Royal Glasgow 2024, ‘Twelfth Night’ at Regent’s Park 2024, ‘The Magic Flute’ Welsh National Opera 2022, ‘Once Upon a One More Time’ Broadway 2020-2022, ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard’ Theatre Royal Windsor 2021, ‘La Traviata’ Longborough Festival Opera 2018 and ‘Don Giovanni’ English Touring Opera 2016.

Read More
John Savournin John Savournin

Jonathan Eyers

Jonathan Eyers trained at the National Opera Studio, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and The University of Waikato. Recent operatic experience includes Ufficiale Il barbiere di Siviglia (Glyndebourne), Pirate King The Pirates of Penzance (Tarantara UK Tour), Papageno Die Zauberflöte (Nevill Holt Festival), Figaro Il barbiere di Siviglia (Charles Court Opera), and Harlekin (cover) Ariadne auf Naxos (Garsington Opera). Jonathan was awarded Third Prize at the 2024 Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition. He is an Oxford Song Young Artist, a City Music Foundation Artist, and a Britten-Pears Young Artist. He has performed at the Oxford International Song, London Song, Aldeburgh, Glasperlenspiel, and Edinburgh International Festivals.

Read More