Gillian Ramm
Born in Australia Gillian Ramm completed her undergraduate training at the West Australian Conservatorium of Music, moving on to the Young Artist Programme with West Australian Opera. After winning multiple prizes in the prestigious Australian Singing Competition she travelled to England to take up a scholarship at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. There she was generously supported by the Peter Moores Foundation, the Tait Foundation and the Ian Potter Foundation of Australia, and completed both her Post Graduate Diploma and Professional Performance Diploma with Distinction. She was also awarded the Ricordi Prize for Opera and the John Cameron Award for Lieder.
Operatic engagements include Fiordiligi Cosí fan Tutte (Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Salzburger Landestheater, Budapest Festival Orchestra), the title role in Rodelinda (Iford Festival with Christian Curnyn), Rosalinde Die Fledermaus (Glyndebourne Touring Opera), First Niece Peter Grimes (English National Opera/BBC Proms), Second Niece Peter Grimes (Teatro di San Carlo, Napoli), Aci Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (London Handel Festival/Göttingen International Handel Festival under Laurence Cummings), Vitellia La Clemenza di Tito Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Donna Anna Don Giovanni and Rossini Scenes and Arias (English Touring Opera), title role in Donizetti’s Rita (West Green House), Cleonilla in Vivaldi’s Ottone in Villa (Buxton Festival), Yum Yum The Mikado (Carl Rosa), Anne Truelove The Rake’s Progress (RNCM), Valencienne The Merry Widow (West Australian Opera) and Clorinda La Cenerentola (Ryedale Festival, RNCM). She sang Juno in The Judgement of Paris at the London Handel Festival earlier this year which was subsequently recorded for Dutton Epoch.
Concert appearances include Messiah with Paul McCreesh/Orquestra Filharmonica de Gran Canaria, Bach’s St John Passion for Teatro Comunale di Bologna and Angelic Voice in Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane with the LPO/Jurowski. Gillian Ramm has performed solo recitals at the London Handel Festival, St James’ Piccadilly, the Blackwood Chamber Music Festival (Australia) and the Royal Over-Seas League, London, and her song repertoire ranges from Grieg and Debussy to Schumann, Wolf and Rachmaninov. She has also recorded two recitals for ABC Classic FM Radio (Australia) and appeared on BBC Radio Three’s In Tune.
Gallery
Rita in Donizetti's opera (West Green House)
Artist Videos
The Judgement of Paris/Dutton Epoch
“As for the goddesses, all three sopranos are in fine fettle. After a lengthy and an amusingly competitive trio (Hither turn thee, gentle swain) in which their subtly contrasted voices, superbly balanced with the band and its hazily ethereal flutes seem to try and outdo each other, each protagonist sings an extended aria in which they make their case. First up is Gillian Ramm’s neatly characterised Juno, aptly haughty in Let Ambition fire thy mind.” MusicWeb International, October 2019
“If Mary Bevan’s Venus wins the golden apple with her ravishing Nature fram’d thee, Susanna Fairbairn and Gillian Ramm provide strong competition.” Sunday Times, July 2019
“…while Gillian Ramm’s Juno, making much of her intractable material, is all hauteur and lofty condescension.” Gramophone, July 2019
“Gillian Ramm is richly characterful as the rather superior Juno, her aria is rather stately but Ramm gives it a nice swagger.” online-classic.eu, July 2019
“Gillian Ramm’s Juno retains a clean, crisp tone at a high range…’ Classical Source, July 2019
The Judgement of Paris/London Handel Festival
“Gillian Ramm was richly characterful as the rather superior Juno…” Planet Hugill, April 2018
Rita/West Green House
“Gillian Ramm dominates the part of Rita with vocal allure and strong, clear projection, to achieve conspicuous musical success. Her acting and singing combine to produce both awe and sympathy…” Classical Source, July 2017
Don Giovanni/English Touring Opera
“…as Anna and Ottavio Gillian Ramm and Robyn Lyn Evans provided the show’s heart: Ramm was both poignant and proud.” Birmingham Post, May 2016
“Gillian Ramm’s Donna Anna may be small in stature but she’s a powerhouse of emotion…” Bum on a Seat, May 2016
La Clemenza di Tito/Classical Opera/Cadogan Hall
“Much of this devolved on to Gillian Ramm’s Vitellia, the scheming princess dumped by the Roman emperor Tito, who manipulates lovelorn Sesto into doing her dirty work by setting Rome on fire and assassinating the monarch. Her plan for revenge fails, she repents and all is forgiveness. Initially Ramm’s wrath veered towards Queen of the Night caricature, and she rather overplayed her voice’s astringent penetration, but she grew into this central role to be very powerful in the challenges of the Act One trio, in which, reinstated as Tito’s bride-to-be, she realises she is too late to abort Sesto’s treasonous mission. The sheer drama of the trio set up a brilliantly effective Act One finale – top-notch Mozart, with fiery singing from the chorus and a psychologically astute, opaque close – and Ramm clinched her incisive portrayal in Vitellia’s moral wrestling-match in her Act Two scena.” Classical Source, March 2014
“Creating most of the drama single-handed was Gillian Ramm as a gloriously vindictive Vitellia. Ramm was in fabulous voice, singing with bristling characterization and a tangible hunger for power which gave her performance real bite. The emotional heart of the whole opera, meanwhile, came from Helen Sherman as Sesto. Her deeply affecting portrayal of the anguished, obsessed traitor was a tour de force, and her stage presence was magnetic as she was torn between her passion for Vitellia and her friendship for Tito.” Bachtrack, March 2014
Ottone in Villa/La Serenissima/Buxton Festival
“Gillian Ramm delivers histrionically as the bitchy Cleonilla, too (the mistress), with even and well-sustained tone in a demanding role.” Manchester Theatre Awards, July 2013
Così fan tutte/Salzburg Landestheater
“Gillian Ramm reaches intense emotional depth and her voice wonderfully amalgamates with that of Dorabella, both of whose strengths are in the lyric.” Wiener Zeitung, January 2013
“[Ramm’s] great Rondo showed an interesting, beautifully focused, floating, lyrical soprano.” Salzburger Nachtrichten, January 2013
La Clemenza di Tito/English Touring Opera, March 2011
“Gillian Ramm…was fearless at the top and moving in her moment of truth and remorse, the great rondo with basset clarinet solo, Non più di fiori.” Opera, March 2011
“Gillian Ramm [is a] strongly focused Vitellia…the sobriety of the shamed Vitellia’s Non più di fiori (No bridalgarlands), with rose petals drifting out of her packed linen, is superbly done.” The Times, March 2011
“Ramm has a voice which has previously been likened to double cream and she did not disappoint vocally in what is a new role for her. She has a great richness of tone in her lower register and yet hits all her high notes perfectly on pitch and with relative ease”, “a confident musician”, “Ramm’s scene where she decides to admit to Tito she is the author of the assassination plot was poignant” Opera Britannia, March 2011
“Gillian Ramm kicked the thing off well as the dreadful Vitellia, quickly establishing the character”
Opera Now, March 2011
“Ramm’s soprano firing bold top-note volleys that match her would-be trophy wife attitude and power-dressing” The Guardian, March 2011
“…the relationship between Julia Riley’s Sesto and Gillian Ramm’s Vitellia becomes unusually convincing. Both sing their big arias with vibrant confidence and gusto.” The Telegraph, March 2011
“Gillian Ramm’s Vitellia is coolly fierce, controlling Sesto more with a fiery temper than by feminine wiles. She makes an immediate and lasting impression vocally…” The Stage,March 2011
Opera Repertoire
| COMPOSER | OPERA | ROLE |
|---|---|---|
| Britten | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Tytania |
| Britten | Peter Grimes | First/Second Niece |
| Britten | The Turn of the Screw | Governess |
| Donizetti | Lucia di Lammermoor | Lucia |
| Donizetti | Rita | Rita |
| Floyd | Susannah | Susannah |
| Handel | Aci, Galatea e Polfemo | Aci |
| Handel | Alcina | Oberto |
| Handel | Agrippina | Poppea |
| Lehar | The Merry Widow | Valencienne |
| Handel | Rodelinda | Rodelinda |
| Mozart | Così fan tutte | Fiordiligi |
| Mozart | Don Giovanni | Donna Anna |
| Mozart | La Clemenza di Tito | Vitellia |
| Rossini | La Cenerentola | CIorinda |
| Strauss (Johann) | Die Fledermaus | Rosalinde |
| Stravinsky | The Rake's Progress | Anne Trulove |
| Verdi | Il Trovatore | Inez |
| Vivaldi | Ottone in Villa | Cleonilla |
Concert Repertoire
| COMPOSER | WORK |
|---|---|
| J S Bach | Magnificat |
| J S Bach | St John Passion |
| Brahms | German Requiem |
| Dyson | Hierusalem |
| Handel | Messiah |
| Haydn | The Creation |
| Haydn | Maria Teresa Mass |
| Haydn | Nelson Mass |
| Haydn | The Season |
| Mahler | Symphony No 4 |
| Mozart | Coronation Mass in C |
| Mozart | Exsultate, Jubilate |
| Mozart | Mass in C minor (Sop I and II) |
| Mozart | Requiem |
| Orff | Carmina Burana |
| Pergolesi | Stabat Mater |
| Rossini | Petite messe solennelle |
| Rossini | Stabat Mater |
| Rutter | Magnificat |
| Vaughan Williams | A Sea Symphony |
