Alexandra Weaver is a British soprano with wide-ranging experience in opera and on the concert platform. She delights in singing music from across the classical spectrum and is equally at home singing a baroque aria or a contemporary piece, but has a particular passion for songs of the late romantic period. Musically and linguistically versatile, she is renowned for performances full of sincerity and vivacity.
Alexandra read music at Edinburgh University where she won the Tovey Memorial Prize and was awarded Clutterbuck and Frazer Scholarships for further study. She continued her training in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Mayer Lismann Opera Centre, with further studies at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh and L’Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.
Song recitals have always been central to Alexandra’s musical life with German lieder, French mélodies, Italian arie and English song sharing equal importance in her repertoire. Recently she has collaborated with Elizabeth Mucha on Art Sung, a project in which song repertoire is performed in a multi-media context and brings the work of neglected composers like Zemlinsky, Pfitzner and Alma Mahler to a wider audience.
Always keen to promote contemporary vocal music, Alexandra created the role of Riccardis in Alasdair Nicolson’s chamber opera Hildegard, whilst still a student. Recently she has performed and recorded Erotic Fragments by Martin Eastwood, a song cycle for piano and voice based on the old testament Song of Songs, and Jeffrey Ching’s Wesendonck Sonata for female voice violin and piano.
On the operatic stage Alexandra toured extensively with English Touring Opera and has sung with many festival opera companies in this country and abroad, such as Garsington, Holland Park, Covent Garden Festival, Stowe and Opus Gattières in the South of France. Roles include: Nicklausse, Antonia’s Mother, Muse – The Tales of Hoffmann; Meg Page – Falstaff; Countess Ceprano, Giovanna – Rigoletto; Mercedes – Carmen; Barbarina, Bridesmaid – Le Nozze di Figaro; Papagena, Third Lady – Magic Flute; Zerlina – Don Giovanni; 2nd Niece – Peter Grimes and Anne Trulove – The Rake’s Progress.
As a concert artist she has performed in venues throughout the UK, ranging from St Cecilia’s Hall and Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, to the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank. She has given recitals in many of London’s fine historic churches, including St James’s Piccadilly, St Bride’s Fleet Street and St Martin-in-the-Fields. Whilst with English Touring Opera, as part of their Outreach Programme, she gave recitals in hospices as well as participating in workshops for the deaf and blind.