Elizabeth Llewellyn

Among relatively few English singers of African descent, soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn returned to opera in later life after illness sidelined her early, becoming a prominent figure in Italian opera productions in Britain in the 2010s. Her repertory also includes Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, as well as various concert works. Llewellyn was born in 1973 or 1974 in South London. Her parents were both of Jamaican origin. Llewellyn's name at birth was Elizabeth Davidson; she took the surname Llewellyn, after a grandfather, to avoid confusion with another singer named Elizabeth Davidson. She did well in music classes at the all-girl Streatham and Clapham High School in London, studying violin and piano as well as voice. Inspired partly by African American soprano Jessye Norman, she enrolled at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. However, when Llewellyn was 22, vocal problems resulting from chronic illness led her to abandon her career, and she worked for some years in the information technology industry. Ten years later, though, she joined an amateur opera society. There, she was heard by an accompanist from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, who encouraged her to return to singing professionally. Llewellyn studied with Lillian Watson and traveled to Italy for a summer course, and then joined the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus. She joined the National Opera Studio and won the first Voice of Black Opera Competition in Britain in 2009. Major productions quickly brought Llewellyn to prominence after that. In 2010, she earned acclaim in the role of Mimi in Puccini's La bohème at the English National Opera, and the following year, she stepped in with just 36 hours' notice to sing the Countess in a production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the same company. In addition to British performances, Llewellyn has also appeared as Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin in Germany and, in 2019, as Bess in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Porgy and Bess, a role she was slated to repeat in the 2021-2022 season. Llewellyn has also appeared in such concert works as Verdi's Requiem, Elgar's Caractacus, and Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony; she has been heard on recordings of the latter two works. She has given song recitals at London's Wigmore Hall and at the Snape Maltings complex in Suffolk, and her debut album, released on the Orchid Classics label in 2021, featured songs by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and was entitled Heart & Hereafter.
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