Louise Crane

Louise Crane studied at the Guildhall, gaining her AGSM Diploma and subsequently won awards from Clonter Opera Trust and the Peter Moores Foundation, as well as a college scholarship, to study at the RNCM. After a season with Glyndebourne Festival Opera Louise won the Peter Stuyvestant Foundation Scholarship to the National Opera Studio where she completed her studies.

Some early engagements were Don Giovanni with Opera Factory (filmed for Channel 4), and Dialogues des Carmelites for the Opèra de Lyon (recorded by Virgin Classics), since when her many and varied roles have included Mother Goose - The Rake’s Progress at the Aldeburgh Festival; Giovanna - Ernani, Ismene - The Siege of Corinth, Death - Le Rossignol and Smaragdi - Francesca da Rimini for Chelsea Opera Group; Florence Pike - Albert Herring, Third Lady - The Magic Flute and Mistress Quickly - Falstaff for English Touring Opera; Marcellina - The Marriage of Figaro and Third Lady for European Chamber Opera; Flora - La Traviata for Mid-Wales Opera and the Irish Operatic Repertory Company, Jocasta - Oedipus Rex and Filipyevna - Eugene Onegin for Oxford University Opera; The Sorceress - Dido and Aeneas for Palace Opera. She made her debut with English National Opera in Joanathan Harvey’s Inquest of Love and subsequently took part in the opera’s revival at the Brussels Opera.

In demand for concert engagements at home and abroad, Louise has broadcast Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, appeared on Friday Night is Music Night and toured with the Basque Symphony Orchestra of Spain and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. She has recorded extracts from Handel’s Messiah for Classic FM and performed the same work in Britain and the Far East. She has sung the B Minor Mass in Salisbury Cathedral, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem under Stephen Cleobury at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge and A Child of Our Time at Warwick University. Her repertoire includes the Missa Solemnis, The Dream of Gerontius, Janácek’s Glagolithic Mass, Mahler's Eighth Symphony, Das Lied von der Erde, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater (broadcast for BBC Radio 3), and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater. She has sung Berlioz L’Enfance du Christ in Hungary with Howard Williams and the Pécs Hungarian Symphony Orchestra and has sung Carmen and Offenbach programmes at the Barbican and Birmingham Symphony Hall.

Louise was also a principal mezzo soprano with the D’Oyly Carte Opera. She regularly sings for Opera Holland Park and Opera della Luna.