The Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Artists Programme – celebrating 25 years of discovering opera’s brightest new stars
The Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Artists Programme celebrates its 25th anniversary in the 2026-2027 season, marking a quarter of a century of discovering, nurturing and training the next generation of talent and helping to ensure the future of opera.
Since the programme’s inception in 2001, Artistic Director David Gowland and Head of Jette Parker Artists Elaine Kidd (from 2018) have supported over 150 artists, many of whom now have internationally high-profile opera and ballet careers. Sally Matthews, Edgaras Montvidas, Ekaterina Gubanova, Ailish Tynan, Matthew Rose, David Butt Philip, Jennifer Davis, Aigul Akhmetshina, Francesca Chiejina, Jacquelyn Stucker, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Germán Alcántara and Yaritza Véliz were all part of the programme. Over 50% of alumni have returned to work at the Royal Ballet and Opera in the past five years both on the Main Stage and in the Linbury Theatre.
With positions for conductors, répétiteurs and pianists added in 2002, stage directors joining in 2003, and ballet conductors in 2008, the JPA programme has fortified the opera and ballet ecosystems with participating artists including conductors Daniele Rustioni and José Salazar, and directors Rodula Gaitanou and Thomas Guthrie. JPA-trained music staff are also enjoying successful freelance careers and heading up departments of major companies including Geneva Opera House and Australian Ballet.
The programme’s worldwide reach continues to enrich and diversify the operatic sector, ensuring a broader, more dynamic future for the art form.
Jette Parker said:
It has been a privilege and one of the great joys of my life to support the Jette Parker Artists Programme. Giving talented young artists the opportunity to join the Programme, to develop their artistry and to build the foundations of their careers, has been deeply rewarding. I feel immensely proud and humbled to see how the artists flourish, grow in confidence, craft and ambition, and to see so many go on to become world‑class performers, singing on the great international stages and the Royal Opera House. To witness their journeys, and to know the Jette Parker Artists Programme has played a part in shaping their futures, is a constant source of pride and inspiration.
Once accepted onto the programme, Jette Parker Artists develop their craft by performing and covering roles on the Main Stage and Linbury Theatre stage, and working as integral members of the Royal Ballet and Opera’s music staff and stage director teams.
The 25th anniversary cohort of singers are sopranos Hannah Edmunds and Seohyun Go, mezzo-sopranos Lily Mo Browne and Ellen Pearson, tenors Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono, Giorgi Guliashvili and Emyr Lloyd Jones, baritone Sam Hird and bass-baritone Jack Sandison.
Joining director Talia Stern and ballet conductor Giovanni Fanizza as Music Staff are conductor/repetiteur Avishka Edirisinghe, who is currently working as a freelance répétiteur on the triple bill of chamber operas (1-8 May), and conductor/répétiteur Marta Misztal, who took part in the RBO’s Women and Marginalised Gender Ballet Conductors Course in January 2026.
Artistic Director David Gowland said:
I am immensely proud of what the JPA programme has become and what it has achieved in its 25-year history. We are all about finding that raw natural talent, which may not have had access to the rigorous training available at Western Europe’s opera schools or be on display at well-known competitions, and giving it the opportunity to flourish. It is so satisfying to see how international our alumni are and watch them have wonderful careers; the future of the artform is bright with them both enthralling audiences and inspiring the next generation.
We are deeply grateful to Jette Parker and the Oak Foundation for their extraordinary generosity and vision in making the Jette Parker Artists Programme possible. Jette’s commitment has not only sustained the programme, but has enabled the programme to shape generations of artists and has enriched the future of opera in ways that are both lasting and inspiring.
Celebrations of the first quarter of a century span the whole Season, culminating in a special edition of the annual Summer Performance with the whole cohort on the Main Stage. Alongside the highly popular Jukebox event, Gowland will curate a two-day festival in the Linbury Theatre, highlighting the dynamic range of repertoire performed by Jette Parker Artists in chamber operas and recitals over a quarter of a century. It’ll bring together the current cohort and special guests.
The first event – an ensemble Leider recital with multiple singers and two pianists – will include excerpts from Brahms’ Liebeslieder and Wolf’s Italienisches und Spanisches Iiederbüchen whilst a second event celebrates recital achievements over the programme’s history. The final event of the festival will be a retrospective of fully staged JPAP productions championing lesser-known works. Staged by JPA director Talia Stern.
Throughout the year, JPAs will also perform a series of specially curated recitals in the splendour of the Crush Room, offering audiences the chance to hear these future stars in an intimate setting. Each Jette Parker Artist will create and perform a personal 45-minute lunchtime recital in collaboration with expert mentors.
Other celebratory events include an exhibition in the Linbury Foyer, featuring some of the remarkable people and projects that have made the Programme unique.
Elaine Kidd, Head of Jette Parker Artists Programme, said:
We are now looking forward to the next 25 years. Our unique initiatives for directors, writers and composers to deepen their dramaturgical and collaborative skills will build fertile ground for the opera of the future. Many former JPAs are now trailblazers, instigating activities in their home countries to pay it forward to the next generation. With the social and cultural landscape evolving at such speed, we need to remain ahead of the curve and prepare our artists to be both excellent and relevant in a constantly shifting industry.
Jette Parker Artists at 25 Listings and Biographies
Jette Parker Artists @25
CRUSH ROOM RECITALS
Crush Room
21 September 2026 – 21 June 2027
21 Sep 2026: Avishka Edirisinghe & Marta Misztal 4-hand piano recital
7 Dec 2026: bass-baritone Jack Sandison
15 Feb 2026: tenor Emyr Lloyd Jones
5 Apr 2027: soprano Seohyun Go
12 Apr 2027: mezzo-soprano Ellen Pearson
26 Apr 2027: tenor Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono
10 May 2027: baritone Sam Hird
7 Jun 2027: mezzo-soprano Lily Mo Browne
14 Jun 2027: soprano Hannah Edmunds
21 Jun 2027: tenor Giorgi Guliashvili
JUKEBOX
Linbury Theatre
25 September 2026
CAST
Sopranos Hannah Edmunds, Seohyun Go
Mezzo-sopranos Lily Mo Browne, Ellen Pearson
Tenors Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono, Giorgi Guliashvili, Emyr Lloyd Jones
Baritone Sam Hird
Bass-baritone Jack Sandison
A MUSICAL RETROSPECTIVE FESTIVAL
Linbury Theatre 20 & 21 April 2027
Cast and creatives to be announced
SUMMER PERFORMANCE
Main Stage 25 July 2027
CREATIVE TEAM
Director Talia Stern
Conductors Giovannia Fanizza + guests
CAST
Sopranos Hannah Edmunds, Seohyun Go
Mezzo-sopranos Lily Mo Browne, Ellen Pearson
Tenors Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono, Giorgi Guliashvili, Emyr Lloyd Jones
Baritone Sam Hird
Bass-baritone Jack Sandison
Artists’ biographies
Lily Mo Browne
Mezzo-soprano Lily Mo Browne joins the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2026/2027 Season. She won the Kathleen Ferrier Award (2025) and trained at the Royal College of Music and National Opera Studio. She made her international debut as Filipyevna (Eugene Onegin) with Verbier Festival’s Atelier Lyrique Academy. Other roles include Dido and Second Witch (Dido and Aeneas), Old Lady (Candide), Zweite and Dreite Dame (Die Zauberflöte), La Regina (La bella dormente nel bosco) and Marie (Airtime) with the RCM International Opera Studio. Other highlights include Handel’s Messiah, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Mozart’s Requiem, and Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. Additional awards include First and Audience Prizes in the Somerset Song Prize, First Prize in the AESS’s Patricia Routledge Senior Song Prize and the ‘Laurus Florentiae’ and Best Performance of an Italian Aria prizes in Florence (2025). 2026/27 Royal Opera roles include Second Esquire (Parsifal), Third Lady (Die Zauberflöte), Maestra della Novizie (Sour Angelica), Fekluša (Káťa Kabanová), and Third Maid (Elektra).
Seohyun Go
South Korean soprano Seohyun Go joins the Jette Parker Artists programme in the 2026/27 Season. She trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Seoul National University, was a Young Artist at the Opera Studio of the Korean National Opera (2021, 2023) and studied at the Franz Schubert-Institut in Baden, Austria (2024). She won the Guildhall School Gold Medal (2025), the Bampton Opera Young Singers Competition (2025), was a Kathleen Ferrier Awards Finalist, where she performed at London’s Wigmore Hall, and was the 2024 recipient of the Guildhall School Franz Schubert-Institut Lieder Prize. Highlights include Poulenc’s Gloria with the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra and Choir at the Barbican and a recital at Carnegie Hall in New York. 2026/27 Royal Opera roles include Frasquita (Carmen), Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Lover (Il tabarro), Sour Genovieffa (Sour Angelica) and Fifth Maid (Elektra).
Jack Sandison
British bass-baritone Jack Sandison joins the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2026/27 Season. He trained at the National Opera Studio, where roles included Zurga (Les pêcheurs de perles), Alfonso (La favorita), Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress), Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), Frollo (La Esmeralda), the title role in Le nozze di Figaro and Leporello (Don Giovanni). Other recent highlights include the title role in Leonard (Birmingham Opera Company), Theseus in Ciphers (Tête à Tête Opera Festival) and his Oslo Opera Festival debut as Bernard in Louis Mander’s The Waves. He was a Glyndebourne Festival Opera Jerwood Young Artist (2022), and has appeared frequently at the festival, including as Keeper of the Madhouse (The Rake’s Progress) for Glyndebourne on Tour. Elsewhere, he has appeared with Wexford Festival Opera, Birmingham Opera Company and Garsington Opera, where, as an Alvarez Young Artist, he covered Speaker (Die Zauberflöte), Haushofmeister (Capriccio) and Cadmus and Somnus (Semele). He is a recipient of the Helen Clarke Award from Garsington Opera, the Wessex and Miriam Trevaux Awards from Glyndebourne and was runner-up in the Joaninha Award Competition, representing Glyndebourne. 2026/27 Royal Opera roles include Second Knight (Parsifal), Pinellino (Gianni Schicchi), Cesare Angelotti (Tosca), Zuàne (La Gioconda) and Priest to Jupiter (Hercules).
Avishka Edirisinghe
British–Sri Lankan pianist and conductor Avishka Edirisinghe joins the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2026/27 Season. A graduate of Imperial College London and the Royal College of Music, he holds degrees in Physics and Music Performance and a Master’s in Collaborative Piano and Conducting. As an accompanist, he has won prizes in all RCM song competitions and the Pianist’s Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Competition at Wigmore Hall. In his final year at RCM, he was appointed Assistant Chorus Director Fellow at English National Opera, later serving as Acting Chorus Master, where he prepared productions including Carmen, Akhnaten and The Dead City.
Following his time at ENO, he studied for a year as a Mascarade Opera Emerging Artist in Florence, performing at Teatro La Fenice, Venice and Teatro della Pergola, before later returning to the UK to work as a répétiteur, Assistant Conductor and Assistant Chorus Master at Glyndebourne and Garsington.
Marta Misztal
Polish pianist, chamber musician and conductor Marta Misztal joins the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2026/27 Season. She studied piano at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm, and piano and conducting at the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music, Gdańsk. She has been a member of the Young Talent Development Programme at the Opera Academy of the Grand Theatre – National Opera in Warsaw since the 2023/24 Season, where she has appeared in concerts, including Intimate Portraits, performing Brahms’ Waltzes with Helmut Deutsch. As a conductor, she has collaborated with the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Sopot, the Elbląg Chamber Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of the Academy of Music in Gdańsk. She has received scholarships from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk and the President of the City of Lublin, and worked as a pianist and vocal coach at the Grand Theatre in Łódź.
Hannah Edmunds
Norwegian soprano Hannah Edmunds joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2025/26 Season. She graduated with a Master’s in Opera from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2025. Recent roles include Nella (Gianni Schicchi), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin) and the title roles in Suor Angelica, Anna Bolena and Thaïs. 2025/26 Royal Opera roles included First Lady (The Magic Flute), Zenia (Boris Godunov) and Margery and Maid in the JPAP production of Tales of Love and Loss. 2026/27 roles include First Lady, La Sorella Infermiera (Suor Angelica), High Priestess (Aida), Fourth Maid (Elektra) and soprano soloist in 4.48 Psychosis, in the Linbury Theatre.
Ellen Pearson
British mezzo-soprano Ellen Pearson joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme and the Lies Askonas Singers’ Fellowship in the 2025/26 Season. She is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal College of Music and is a former Opera Prelude Artist, artist on the Wigmore Hall French Song Exchange programme, Oxford International Song Young Artist, Samling Artist, Shipston Song Rising Star, Britten Pears Young Artist and Opera Holland Park Young Artist. Roles include La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi) at the Verbier Festival, Donna Ximena (Don Giovanni) and Anna Swann (Barnum’s Bird) at the RCM and Uno di Due Donne (Le nozze di Figaro) at the RNCM. Awards include the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize (2025), Nigel Beale First Prize and Anthony Lowrey Audience Prize at the Hurn Court Opera Singer of the Year (2024) and First Prize and Best Duo Prize in the Ashburnham English Song Competition (2024). 2025/26 Royal Opera roles included Second Lady (The Magic Flute), Flora Bervoix (La traviata) and Julia/Irina in the JPAP production of Tales of Love and Loss. 2026/27 roles include Flower Maiden (Parsifal), Second Lady, Mercédès (Carmen) and Second Maid (Elektra).
Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono
New Zealand-born Samoan tenor Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2025/26 Season. He is a graduate of the Te Pae Kōkako TANZOS (The Aotearoa New Zealand Opera Studio), supported by a Dame Malvina Major Foundation (DMMF) Scholarship, and the New Zealand Opera School. He was the winner of the 2024 Iosefa Enari Memorial Award, 2023 Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Award, 2023 IFAC Handa Australian Singing Competition and 2022 Lockwood New Zealand Aria Competition, and recipient of the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Scholarship (2022 Lexus Song Quest). He was also a 2022 DMMF Studio Artist with New Zealand Opera. Recent performances include Gerontius/Soul in The Dream of Gerontius (Auckland Choral), solo tenor in Mozart’s Requiem (Dunedin Symphony Orchestra), the world premiere of Christopher Tin’s To Shiver the Sky with Brass (Hamilton City Brass). Roles with New Zealand Opera include Tupaia (Tim Finn’s Ihitai Avei’a), Arturo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Malcolm (Macbeth) and Gastone (La traviata). 2025/26 Royal Opera roles included Pang (Turandot), Borsa (Rigoletto) and First Philistine (Samson et Dalila). 2026/27 roles include Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), First Knight (Parsifal), Minister of Justice (Un ballo in maschera), First Man in Armour (Die Zauberflöte) and Venditore (Il tabarro).
Giorgi Guliashvili
Tenor Giorgi Guliashvili joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2025/26 Season. He began his studies at the Tbilisi State Conservatory, where he made his debut in 2019 as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) and Alfredo (La traviata). He is also a graduate of the Academy of Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, the Music Academy of the West, San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program and Yale University’s postgraduate opera programme. Roles at Teatro di San Carlo include Cavaradossi (Tosca), Signor Hervey (Anna Bolena) and Flavio (Norma). Concert engagements include appearances with the orchestra of Teatro di San Carlo and Paisiello’s Don Chisciotte della Mancia at the Royal Palace of Naples. Other roles include Lensky (Eugene Onegin) at Verbier Festival 2025, excerpts from Faust, lolanta and Lucia di Lammermoor with the Merola Programme and Vaudémont (Iolanta) at Yale. 2025/26 Royal Opera roles included Mainfroid (Les Vêpres siciliennes), Gastone (La traviata), Sir Bruno Roberton (I puritani) and Leslie in the JPAP production of Tales of Love and Loss. 2026/27 roles include Third Esquire (Parsifal), Dancaïro (Carmen), Lover (Il tabarro) and Messenger (Aida).
Emyr Lloyd Jones
Welsh tenor Emyr Lloyd Jones joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2025/26 Season. He is a graduate of the National Opera Studio, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Northern College of Music. Recent roles include Oronte (Alcina), Fulgor in the world premiere of McNeff’s A Star Next To The Moon and Eckbert in Weir’s Blond Eckbert with GSMD, Don Riccardo (Ernani) with Buxton International Festival and Bunyan (The Pilgrim’s Progress) with British Youth Opera. He was the 2022 winner of the Pendine International Voice of the Future at Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod and the winner of the Dunraven Young Welsh Singer of the Year Award 2024. He was also a semi-finalist at the 2024 Kathleen Ferrier Awards at the Wigmore Hall. At the RNCM, he won the Joyce and Michael Kennedy Award for the Singing of Strauss, the Alexander Young Prize, the Oncken Song Prize and the Elsie Thurston Prize. At the National Eisteddfod of Wales, he won the Blue Ribband for folk singing. 2025/26 Royal Opera roles included Odoardo (Ariodante), Gastone (La traviata), Borsa (Rigoletto) and Philistine Messenger (Samson et Dalila).2026/27 roles include Fourth Esquire (Parsifal), Remandado (Carmen), Isèpo (La Gioconda) and Young Servant (Elektra).
Sam Hird
Baritone Sam Hird joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2025/26 Season. He is a Samling Artist and trained at the Royal College of Music, where he won the Tagore Gold Medal. Additional awards include the 2024 Clonter Opera Prize, Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Competition with the Sinfonia Smith Square and Prix Thierry Mermod at the 2023 Verbier Festival, where he was part of the Atelier Lyrique. He made his Royal Opera debut as the title role in Pimpinone in the Linbury Theatre and his Main Stage debut as Baron Douphol (La traviata). Other highlights include Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Danilo (The Merry Widow), Ramiro (L’heure espagnole), Biagio (Don Giovanni Tenorio) and Ambassador (La bella dormente nel bosco) for the RCM, Peer (Peer Gynt) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Brahms’ Ein Deutches Requiem with the Liverpool Philharmonic and his Wigmore Hall debut in a recital of songs by Samuel Coleridge- Taylor and Joseph Horovitz. 2025/26 Royal Opera roles included Mityukha (Boris Godunov), Marullo (Rigoletto) and Mark, Hewson and Krumpelblatt in the JPAP production of Tales of Love and Loss. 2026/27 roles include Moralès (Carmen), Guccio (Gianni Schicchi), Kuligin (Káťa Kabanová), Sciarrone (Tosca) and Prince Yamadori (Madama Butterfly).
Giovanni Fanizza
Italian conductor Giovanni Fanizza joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2025/26 Season. He is a graduate of the Haute école de musique de Genève with a Master’s in Orchestral Conducting, where he studied with Laurent Gay, and Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, where he studied with Marc Kissoczy. He has also trained with Nicolas Pasquet, Colin Metters, Donato Renzetti, and Heinz Holliger. Prior to focusing on conducting, he studied the accordion with Germano Scurti. He has collaborated with various orchestras and ensembles, including the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, Divertimento Ensemble, Orchestre de l’Université de Genève, Orchestra Sinfonica del Lario, AIDO Ensemble and Berlin Sinfonietta. In 2024, Fanizza joined the Gstaad Conducting Academy, working with Johannes Schlaefli and Jaap van Zweden, and completed an internship at the Grand Théâtre de Genève on a production of Salome with Jukka-Pekka Saraste. He was a Conducting Fellow at the 2025 Aspen Music Festival, working with Robert Spano and Mark Stringer.
Talia Stern
French-American opera director Talia Stern joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2025/26 Season. She has a Master’s with Distinction in Opera Directing from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and a Bachelor’s in English with Film from King’s College London. She also has a diploma in Opera Directing from the Accademia Europea di Firenze. Recent productions include the award-nominated The Rape of Lucretia (British Youth Opera), for which she was selected as BYO’s first trainee director, A World Turned Upside Down – The Diary of Anne Frank (Waterperry Festival), Der Schauspieldirektor (David Seligman Opera School), Opera Scenes (RWCMD) and the short film Palimpsest (co-production with Opera Fuoco and American Embassy of Paris). As assistant director, she has worked on Glyndebourne’s Il turco in Italia and a new production of Le nozze di Figaro, and adapted Mariame Clément’s staging for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. She has also assisted on The Makropulos Affair at Scottish Opera and Death in Venice at Welsh National Opera. At ROH in the 2025/26 Season, she directs the JPAP production of Tales of Love and Loss and the Programme’s Summer Performance.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
