Dame Felicity Lott

One of the most admired British singers of her generation, Felicity Lott enjoyed huge success both opera house and concert hall, winning special praise for her prodigious recital work as well as her recordings of song in several languages. Her idiomatic and expressive performance of French repertoire, in particular, was admired by Francophone audiences, but she also demonstrated exceptional artistry in German and British song. Born in Cheltenham in 1947, Lott began her musical education aged five, with singing lessons from the age of 12. Studying French and Latin at Royal Holloway College, she spent a year in France before moving on to the Royal Academy of Music. As a founder member of the song specialist and pianist Graham Johnson’s collective The Songmaker’s Almanac, Lott quickly gained a reputation as an exponent of a wide range of song, with French mélodie arguably to the fore. Making her operatic debut as Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute at English National Opera in 1975, Lott was soon regularly appearing with the top British companies, and then those further afield, specialising in roles by Mozart and Richard Strauss, as well as a number of French composers, including operettas by Offenbach which she played with an acute sense of style. Among Lott’s many honours were her appointment as a Dame of the British Empire and a Légion d’honneur (both in 1996), Kammersängerin of the Bavarian State Opera (2003), and the Wigmore Hall Medal (2010) in recognition of her contribution to that London venue. Her many recordings exhibit her excellence over an extraordinary breadth of repertoire. She died on 15 May 2026.