La Clemenza di Tito
Biography
Currently residing in the UK, leading Australian mezzo soprano Catherine Carby has performed with many major opera companies and orchestras including the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, English Touring Opera, The Royal Ballet, Opera Australia, West Australian Opera, Victoria State Opera, Opera Queensland, Sydney, West Australian, Melbourne, Tasmanian and Queensland Orchestras, and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to return invitations to the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and Longborough Festival Opera, this year Catherine will perform Idamante (Idomeneo) for English Touring Opera, in Karl Jenkins' 75th birthday celebrations and make her debut with Pinchgut Opera.
Recent engagements include Siegrune (The Ring Cycle), Minerva (The Return of Ulysses), and Antonia's mother (Tales of Hoffmann) for the Royal Opera House; Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) for Longborough Festival Opera; Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride (title role), Rodrigo (Pia di Tolomei, Donizetti) and Diana (La Calisto) for English Touring Opera; Haydn Paukenmesse with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Elijah at the Hexham Festival; Nita, (The Mountebanks) with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) at Teatro São Carlos Lisbon, and Katharina Schratt (Mayerling) for The Royal Ballet London.
For Opera Australia, Catherine has sung Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier), title role (Carmen), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Romeo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi), Hippolyta (A Midsummer Night's Dream), Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), Baba the Turk (The Rake's Progress), for which she won a Helpmann Award, Mallika (Lakmé), Ruth (The Pirates of Penzance), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Cornelia (Giulio Cesare), for which she received a Green Room Award, Ruggiero (Alcina), Kristina (The Makropulos Affair), Heavenly Being and Madam By-Ends (The Pilgrim's Progress), Suzuki (Madame Butterfly), Second Lady (Magic Flute) and Auntie (Peter Grimes).
Press
Iphigénie en Tauride, English Touring Opera
"...Carby sounds extraordinarily beautiful as her voice cleaves through Gluck's soaring lines"
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, March 2016

"...And if you want to hear world-class singing, that's what you'll get from mezzo-soprano Catherine Carby in the title role...Carby sails through her hugely demanding role with seemingly effortless grace".
Michael Church, Independent.co.uk, March 2016

Partenope, Opera Australia
"...Catherine Carby was as impressive - perhaps even more so - with her silken, sophisticated, confused Arsace. Carby is superb in trouser roles, taking on masculine qualities in subtle, interesting ways without a trace of strain".
Deborah Jones, Opera Magazine, June 2011

Capuleti e i Montecchi, Opera Australia
"Carby combined wonderfully flexible vocal expressiveness with a haughty stage swagger so that her pluck, statuesque carriage and fragility amid the realism of guns and knives created a genuine frisson."
Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald, August 2009

Don Giovanni, Opera Australia
"...Catherine Carby's Donna Elvira was the work's most interesting character in her comic, self-humiliating obsession with Giovanni, and she rose to the challenge with humour and poignancy. Her beautifully phrased and coloured Act II aria, Mi tradi, was a musico-dramatic turning."
Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald, July 2008

View My Personal Bio