Winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award 2011 and the 59th Royal Over-seas League Award for Singers, British mezzo soprano Kitty Whately trained at Chetham’s School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is currently studying with Tim Evans-Jones at the Royal College of Music International Opera School. She was also a finalist at the Les Azuriales International Singing Competition 2010.
Kitty has recently sung Dorabella Così fan tutte and Eduige Rodelinda for RCMIOS, Kate Owen Wingrave for Nuremberg International Chamber Music Festival, and Edith in Arne’s Alfred for the Classical Opera Company. She has also sung cover roles in the world premiere of Peter Etvos' Love and Other Demons for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and Idamante Idomeneo for Buxton Festival Opera. Other operatic roles include Cherubino Marriage of Figaro, Nancy Albert Herring, Juno Semele, Second Lady The Magic Flute, and Johanna Sweeney Todd.
On the recital platform, Kitty has worked with Roger Vignoles, Gary Matthewman and Joseph Middleton. She has given recitals at Oxford Lieder Festival, Wigmore Hall, the Elgar Room (RAH). A Samling Foundation Scholar, Kitty has also participated in a workshop week with Sir Thomas Allen and Roger Vignoles in 2010.
Highlights in 2011/12 season include Teodata Flavio and Rosina Barber of Seville for English Touring Opera, Samling Foundation showcase at the Wigmore Hall, Handel Messiah at Bath Abbey, Kodaly Missa Brevis, Mozart and Durufle’s Requiems with the Hertfordshire Chorus, Christmas Concert for Royal Over-seas League, and recitals for Leeds Lieder, Buxton Festival, Leighton House and 49 Queensgate Terrace sponsored by the Kathleen Ferrier Awards. In future seasons, she will also make her debut at the English National Opera.
Kitty Whately is supported by the Aldama Scholarship at the RCM, and was awarded the Cuthbert Smith prize, the Ted Moss and Bertha Taylor-Stach lieder prize and 1st place in the Joan Chissell Schumann competition. She is also supported by the English Touring Opera Young Artist Programme.
Kitty Whately is represented worldwide by Intermusica.
November 2012 / 330 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.
Recital at Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall / Leeds
“… She breathes life into all her characters with her bright vocal tone, exquisite diction and wonderful facial expressions. When interpreting Wolf, her voice seemed transformed: darker in tone, much richer, and many times more powerful. Applause was not immediate, and as her final note hung in the air it seemed as though the incredible emotion she had captured had left us all a little stunned.
Whately captured the dark, contemplative atmosphere of unrequited love beautifully… Both works were excellent vehicles for Whatley to showcase the strength and purity of her voice as well as her considerable talent for interpretation… she gave her audience the opportunity to bask in the beauty and power of her sound…This was a truly exquisite recital.”
Laura Kate Wilson,
Bachtrack, March 2012
Rosina in Rossini The Barber of Seville
English Touring Opera / cond. Paul McGrath / dir. Thomas Guthrie
“Kitty Whately was the star of the evening… pertly mischievous, her coloratura bright and clean”
Nick Kimberley, Opera, May 2012
“In among all these jewels was a gem: the spectacular 2011 Ferrier Award-winning mezzo, Kitty Whately, whose performance as Rosina was vocally thrilling and dramatically electric”
Michael Tumelty, Herald Scotland, May 2012
“Only the delightful Rosina of Kitty Whately, in her professional opera debut, seems entirely relaxed. As an actress she’s a natural, and obviously a chip off the old block — her father, Kevin Whately, TV’s Inspector Lewis, was in the audience — and as a singer she is impeccable, lapping up Rossini’s vocal tagliatelle and throwing off roulades and runs as if they were confetti. Her voice is not overlarge, but it is perfectly formed, and she is as easy on the eye as she is on the ear. I haven’t seen such a confident debut in a long time.”
Hugh Canning, The Times, March 2012
“Kitty Whately displays a beautiful voice… and feisty personality as Rosina.”
Graham Rogers, The Stage, March 2012
“Kitty Whately, last year’s Kathleen Ferrier Award laureate, is winningly cast here as a feisty Rosina. Her compact mezzo is glinting throughout its range.”
John Allison, The Telegraph, March 2012
“But the show’s most appealing singing comes from Kitty Whately as Rosina... her silvery timbre, deft way of gliding through fast-moving passagework and vivacity on stage suggest a career that will blossom.”
Richard Morrison, The Times, March 2012
“Kitty Whately, the laureate in last year’s Ferrier competition, sang with style and grace as Rosina... disciplined by a firm technique, and she has a winning stage personality.”
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, March 2012
“Kitty Whately was a spirited Rosina who balanced the feistiness that is expected in this role with a real sense of vulnerability and desperation at her plight… She has a warm, agile mezzo-soprano voice that is ideal in this repertoire… this was an outstanding performance."
Steve Silverman, Opera Britannia, March 2012
"… the radiantly sung (and wittily acted) Rosina of Kitty Whately, winner of the 2011 Kathleen Ferrier Award... this star of the future was ‘rockin’ the stadium’.
Mark Valencia, Classical Source, April 2012
“Kitty Whately has a fluent mezzo-soprano and puts over both Rosina’s pent-up naughtiness and her vulnerability from “Una voce poco fa” through her emotional and physical collapse during the storm… to her final acceptance of happiness in the “Ah! qual colpo inaspettato” duet.”
Anne Morley-Priestman, Whats on Stage, April 2012
“My highlight of the week was hearing Kitty Whately, a remarkably agile and rich mezzo who won the Kathleen Ferrier Award in 2011, as Rossini's Rosina.”
Colin Davison, This is Gloucestershire, May 2012
Kathleen Ferrier Competition
Wigmore Hall / acc. Gamal Khamis
“First came 28-year-old mezzo Kitty Whately. She is a nice-looking girl, offering clean, evenly produced tone and an attractive platform personality.”
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, October 2011
Teodata in Handel Flavio, re de' Longobardi
English Touring Opera / cond. Jonathan Peter Kenny / dir. James Conway
“Kitty Whately’s Teodata shines with quality.”
George Hall, The Stage, October 2011
“Kitty Whately and Lina Markeby were delightful... impressing from their opening post-coital duet through all the prevarication and comic falsity that ensues.
Ms. Whately effected the flirtatious coquetry of the part superbly, her obvious flattery at being wooed by the king granting credence to Ms. Markeby’s heated jealousy.”
John E de Wald, Opera Brittania, October 2011
Dorabella in Mozart Così Fan Tutte / Britten Theatre
The Royal College of Music International Opera School / cond. Michael Rosewell / dir. Lee Blakeley
“Some of the most stunning vocal moments of the opera came form Dennis and Whately’s voices, harmonising beautifully during Soave si il vento (‘May the wind be gentle’) and Prenderò quel brunettino ('I will take the dark one')…
Recent recipient of the Kathleen Ferrier Award Kitty Whately was a wonderful Dorabella. She has a sweet-toned, perfectly controlled mezzo that seems made for Mozart, and her perfect diction and expressive eyes made her duet with Guglielmo, Il core vi done (‘I give you my heart’), one of the highlights of the opera.”
Laura Wilson, Bachtrack, July 2011
Edith in Arne Alfred / Classical Opera Company / Kings Place
Cond. Ian Page
“I was particularly impressed by the Edith of Kitty Whately... her grief-stricken aria opening the second act was heartbreaking, her timbre warm and honeyed and her phrasing luscious, dripping with feeling. The more elaborate fioritura of the aria was fantastic, Ms. Whately’s tone fully secure and radiant.”
John E. de Wald, Opera Britannia, October 2010