Janice Watson

British soprano Janice Watson, born in 1964, was all set to become a professional flautist, but a canny intervention from tenor and mentor Philip Langridge steered her onto a different path. In 1987, at the age of just 23, she won the Kathleen Ferrier Award, which propelled her into an international career, singing leading roles in all the major opera houses and concert halls. Just a decade later she starred on a Grammy-winning recording of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes (1996), playing Ellen Orford opposite Langridge himself in the title role. Watson’s is a classically beautiful voice: pure, agile and brilliant in her early years, before maturing into more rounded warmth—tone now gold rather than silver—and slightly heavier lyric parts. Signature roles have included Mozart’s long-suffering Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), Strauss’ Arabella and Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), and Janáček’s Katya Kabanova. But her impressive breadth of repertoire has taken her from Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte) to Elisabetta (Don Carlos) and 20th-century works by Britten and Vaughan Williams.