User:Morag Kerr/Anne Sharp

Anne Sharp (b. 24th October 1916) is a Scottish soprano who created a number of roles in the operas of Benjamin Britten.

Background and education

Anne Sharp was born in Motherwell, Lanarkshire, the eighth and youngest child in a family of keen amateur musicians. Her father was an engineer in the steel industry, and also an amateur singer and choirmaster. After leaving school she worked as a secretary while taking private singing lessons, and in 1941 she began studying at the Scottish National Academy of Music in Glasgow, winning the Jean Highgate singing scholarship in 1943.

London career

In 1946 she joined the chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, when the opera house was reopened following the Second World War. In March 1947 she became a founder member of Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group, singing Britten roles at Glyndebourne, Sadler's Wells, Lucerne, The Hague, Oslo and Copenhagen as well as the company's home base at Aldeburgh. Able to pass as a teenager even in her thirties, she sang the role of Emmie Spatchett in Albert Herring at the first Aldeburgh Festival in June 1948.

She created the roles of Cis Woodger in Albert Herring and Molly Brazen in The Beggar's Opera, as well as Juliet Brooks in The Little Sweep, a part written for her by Britten. In the play Let's Make an Opera which precedes The Little Sweep, in which the characters were named for the original cast members, "Anne Dougal" who takes the part of Juliet was originally played as a Scots girl.

In 1949 and 1950 she appeared in live radio broadcasts of Albert Herring, Let's Make an Opera and The Beggar's Opera on the BBC Third Programme. Albert Herring was also broadcast live on BBC television in 1949 with the original cast.

Marriage and later life

In December 1950 Anne Sharp married Rev. James Lyon Kerr, a Church of Scotland minister. She continued her operatic career in London intermittently after her marriage, but after the birth of their daughter in 1953 concentrated on oratorio roles in Scotland.

Anne Sharp lives with her daughter in West Linton, Peeblesshire.

Recordings

Molly Brazen, in an original cast performance of The Beggar's Opera issued by Pearl in 2005.

Emmie Spatchett, in a 1949 performance of Albert Herring recorded live at the Theatre Royal, Copenhagen, issued by Nimbus in September 2008.

The 1949 BBC archive recording of Let's Make an Opera with Anne Sharp in the dual role of Anne Dougal and Juliet Brooks is not commercially available.

External links

• Anne Sharp (left, standing) as Juliet Brooks in The Little Sweep, 1951
• Britten-Pears Foundation article on The Little Sweep
• Nimbus recording of 1949 performance of Albert Herring
• Guide to Musical Theatre article on The Beggar's Opera
• Pearl original cast recording of The Beggar's Opera

Category:British opera singers Category:Scottish opera singers Category:1916 births