Biography

Soprano

Anglo-Irish soprano, Zita Syme graduated from Royal Holloway University of London with BMus (First Class Hons). She is a Britten-Pears Young Artist and won first prize in the 2017 Emmy Destinn Young Singers Award. Zita has been supported by the Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust which has made recent residential masterclasses with Cheryl Studer and Bernarda Fink possible.

As a Young Artist for Longborough Festival Opera Zita has sung Giunone (Cavalli, La Calisto) and covered Fiordiligi (Mozart, Cosi Fan Tutte). In 2022 she made her debut with Wexford Festival opera creating the role of Mrs Saker in the world première of Alberto Caruso’s The Master and returned the following season to sing Suor Genovieffa (Puccini, Suor Angelica). Recent engagements include singing Mimi in the 2023 and 2024 Opera Brava UK and Corfu tour, Antonia (Les Contes D’Hoffmann) and Mademoiselle Silberklang (Mozart, Der Schauspieldirektor).

From 2020-2022 Zita was a resident ensemble artist with Opéra Grand Avignon and sang roles in Mireille (Gounod), Peter Grimes (Britten) and Idomeneo (Mozart). Recent tours include co-productions, of Bellini’s La Sonnambula (Opéra de Vichy and Opéra de Clermont). Forthcoming engagements include co-productions of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci (Opéra national de Montpellier and Opéra de Toulon).

Recent concert engagements include Haydn’s Nelson Mass (Aberystwyth Arts Centre), Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été (St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden) and solo recitals at St James’s Piccadilly, The National Portrait Gallery and in the Music Festival d’Orange (France).

Zita has worked with companies including Opéra Grand Avignon, Opéra national de Montpellier, Longborough Festival Opera, Opera Holland Park, The Buxton International Festival, Wexford Festival Opera and Opera Rara and Opera Up Close. She has sung with conductors including Richard Hickox CBE, Oleg Caetani, Carlo Rizzi, Marc Korovitch, Beatrice Venezi, Debora Waldman and Federico Santi.

For Naxos, she has recorded Herbert Howells’s Hymnus Paradisi, Carl Rutti’s Requiem (world première) and movie soundtracks for Walt Disney’s Shrek the Third and Prince Caspian conducted by Harry Gregson-Williams.

Reviews

“There were one or two notable performances. Soprano Zita Syme as Suor Genovieffa made the most of her role, showing off her well-crafted phrasing and her bright, piercing voice to good effect.”

Alan Neilson, Operawire

“Soprano Zita Syme made a splash with a colorful performance as Mrs. Edward Saker.”

Alan Neilson, Operawire

“With the appearance of Zita Syme as a pugnacious, intelligent and vocally splendid Juno… the whole thing took off.”

La Calisto 2 August 2019, Mel Cooper, Plays To See

“Syme has an exciting voice…rich in tone and full of contrasting colours. I was impressed by her every time she came on stage: one rather wanted more of her.”

Roderic Dunnett, Classical Music Daily

“Best of the singing, however, outshining even the strong and forceful Diana, came from Zita Syme as Giunone (Juno): She is pretty electrifying – she could indeed sing the fiery Elettra in Idomeneo. Syme had everything the Queen of the Gods needs: simmering anger at Jupiter’s continuing infidelities, and his willingness to disport them; consequent jealousy, and a harrowing suspicion; a measure of bitchiness and spite; and a degree of feminine anguish at being thus jilted.

Syme has an exciting voice, which cuts through the strong accompaniment and makes clear who is actually dominant and ultimately wears the trousers. Here was an award-winning young singer whose voice sounded impressively mature, whose diction was excellent, whose stage presence, even when painfully distanced from all the others – another good directing idea – in a glaring red outfit was strikingly forceful, with a notably rich tone and full of contrasting colours. Age and childbearing may have caught up with Juno, but she is still glamorous. She intends to keep her man, and anyone – like Calisto – who gets in the way will have a hard time.”

Roderick Dunnet, A View From Behind the Aria