Janice Watson

Janice Watson studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and first came to prominence as winner of the Kathleen Ferrier memorial award.

In opera Watson has sung Pamina in The Magic Flute with the Paris Opera; Vitellia in The Clemency of Titus for the Flanders Opera; Daphne, Arabella, Salome and Elettra in Idomeneo at the Santa Fe Festival; Daphne, Arabella and Eva in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg with the San Francisco Opera; Pamina, Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro and Arabella at the Bavarian State Opera; Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes at the Vienna State Opera, Netherlands Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Britten’s Gloriana under Richard Hickox at the Aldeburgh Festival;  Countess Almaviva for the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin and in Tokyo, Micaëla in Carmen at both the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera, and both Countess Almaviva and Liù in Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera.

She has been a regular guest with both English National Opera (most recently as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier and Madame Butterfly) and Welsh National Opera (most recently in Ariadne auf Naxos). She returned to Lyric Opera of Chicago for Jennifer in The Midsummer Marriage, returned to the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin as Salome and sang Katja Kabanova both for the Royal Opera House and in her dèbut at La Scala, Milan. She sang A Streetcar Named Desire under AndréPrevin with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic in Oslo and Vienna and in the new production at the Theater an der Wien. 

Her concerts include the Boston Symphony Orchestra under both Sir Roger Norrington and AndréPrevin, the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson-Thomas, the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis, André Previn and Riccardo Chailly, the Orchestre de Paris under Frans Brüggen, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields under Sir Neville Marriner, the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Bernard Haitink and both the Chicago Symphony and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras under Riccardo Chailly. 

Her many recordings include Orff's Carmina Burana for Virgin Classics, Poulenc's Gloria for Chandos and Howells' Missa Sabrinensis under Rozhdestvensky. She recorded Ellen Orford under Richard Hickox for Chandos (for which she received a Grammy Award) and with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis on the LSO Live label; Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream under Sir Colin Davis for Philips Classics and the title role in Jenufa under Sir Charles Mackerras for Chandos.

This season, she sings Alice Ford in Falstaff for the Welsh National Opera, the Marschallin for English National Opera and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser  for Opera Australia. Future engagements include Elsa in Lohengrin for the Hamburg Opera, Ellen Orford in Naples and San Francisco, Elisabetta in Don Carlos for Opera North and Leonore in Fidelio in Beijing.