Casting and Performance Director
team
During her successful international career as a dramatic soprano, Elaine McKrill has worked alongside the top Wagnerian singers of our age. Her colleagues have included household names such as Nina Stemme, Susan Bullock, Christine Goerke, Linda Watson, Irene Theorin, Catherine Foster, Heidi Melton, John Tomlinson, Placido Domingo, Simon O’Neill, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Ian Storey, Karen Cargill, Christopher Ventris, Petra Lang, Bryn Terfel, Waltraud Meier, Willard White, Kurt Rydl and many more. It is safe to say that she knows a lot about what makes a good Wagnerian singer!
Elaine’s Wagner repertoire encompasses all the Ring Cycle roles for her voice type as well as Isolde, Kundry, Adriano, Ortrud and Venus.
Having worked with Elaine numerous times at Edinburgh Opera Players, conductor Michael Thorne was well aware of her credentials and had no hesitation in recommending her to Paul Garland and Francis Lambert of Saffron Opera Group as the Casting Advisor for their new company. The rest, as they say, is history! It has been – and continues to be – a successful partnership, with reviews including:
“I cannot comment on everyone but you are unlikely ever to hear an ensemble to better SOG’s Gods, Goddesses, Nibelungs, Giants, and Rhinemaidens” (Jim Pritchard – Seen and Heard International- reviewing Das Rheingold in 2015)
“As for the cast, I have to reach back to memories of Karajan’s days at Vienna, with Vickers and Nilsson and Hotter, for a Die Walküre that was overall as well sung as this.” (Paul Dawson-Bowling in Wagner News reviewing Die Walküre in 2016).