Jeannette Sinclair
Born1928 (age 95–96)
Camberwell

Jeannette Sinclair (born 1928) is an English soprano. She sang a variety of roles as a principal soprano at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, during the 1950s and 1960s. Her work for the BBC encompassed opera, oratorio and many recitals of lieder, English song and French chanson, light music and appearances at the BBC Henry Wood Promenade concerts, 1960–9.

Life and career

Born in Camberwell, London, UK on 11 April 1928, Jeannette Sinclair attended Mary Datchelor Girls' School. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and later at the Opera School with Joan Cross and privately with Helene Isepp.

Jeannette Sinclair made her debut in 1954 with Sadler's Wells as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro. Her Glyndebourne debut followed in 1955 as Barbarina in the Gui/Ebert production of Le nozze di Figaro. As a Principal soprano at Covent Garden 1954–66, her roles included: Micaela (cond. Gibson); Susanna (cond. Solti); Zerlina (Kempe); Marzelline (Fidelio cond. Klemperer, Leitner); Annchen (Der Freischütz cond. Kempe); Helena (Midsummer Night's Dream, Britten); Bella (Midsummer Marriage, Tippett); Sister Constance (Dialogue of the Carmelites, Poulenc, cond. Kubelik).

Appearances with other companies included Mimi (La Bohème) for Welsh National Opera, Handel's Susanna at the Göttingen Festival with Handel Opera and Eurydice in Milhaud's The Sorrows of Orpheus at the Camden Festival. She sang Belinda in Dido and Aeneas conducted by Britten, both at Drottningholm Palace in 1962 and in the later BBC recording.

BBC Studio opera broadcasts included Beatrice and Benedict, Berlioz; Fenemore and Gerda, Delius; Hugh the Drover, Vaughan Williams; Die Abreise, D'Albert. Performances of Gilbert and Sullivan included HMS Pinafore and, The Sorcerer.

BBC Television appearances included Anne Page in the Merry Wives of Windsor and Nella in Gianni Schicchi with Tito Gobbi.

Premieres

Sister Constance in the British premiere of The Dialogues of the Carmelites, Covent Garden, 1958, in the presence of François Poulenc.

World premiere of Scenes from Comus, Op 6, Hugh Wood, BBC Promenade Concert, 2 August 1965.

BBC Promenade Concerts premieres of Midsummer Marriage, Tippett, 7 August 1963; Dixit Dominus HWV 232, Handel, 18 September 1964; Moses und Aron, Schoenberg, 19 July 1965.

Recordings

  • Don Carlos Giulini, Solti
  • Marriage of Figaro, Gui
  • Comte d'Ory, Gui
  • Siegfried, Kempe
  • Dido and Aeneas, Britten
  • various Gilbert and Sullivan, Sargent

Private life

Jeannette Sinclair married a chartered electrical engineer in 1954, with whom she had one son and one daughter; she has three grandchildren.

References

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