Zoe South
Zoe South is in demand as a dramatic soprano, and as an interpreter of the roles of Wagner and Richard Strauss in particular. She had a first musical career as a professional flautist, freelancing across the UK and Europe and as a relatively late-starter as a singer, she was the first Sophie’s Silver Lining Fund scholarship holder at The Opera School Wales, where her roles – then as a mezzo soprano – included Jezibaba (Rusalka) and Giovanna Seymour (Anna Bolena), and engagements with Swansea City Opera.
Retraining as a soprano with the late Richard Smart, her professional debut was with The Opera Project/Longborough Festival Opera in Britten’s Albert Herring. Zoe has participated in masterclasses with David Syrus (former Head of Music at the Royal Opera House), respected mezzo soprano Ann Murray DBE, and German mezzo soprano Petra Lang, the last of these at the invitation of The Wagner Society, who also asked her to sing Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene at their Annual Dinner in the presence of Dame Gwyneth Jones.
She has performed over 40 complete operatic roles, including Brünnhilde in Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle, Isolde, Eva, Kitty Oppenheimer Doctor Atomic, Richard Strauss’ Elektra, Dyer’s Wife, and the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos. Other career highlights include creating the role of The Woman in the world stage premiere of Robert Hugill’s When a Man Knows, and being one of a small number of singers worldwide to have performed all three endings of Puccini’s Turandot.
She has also worked extensively on the concert platform and as a session singer, with credits including the Classical Brit Awards, Children in Need, and several credits for both ITV and the BBC, not least backing the late Luciano Pavarotti on the Parkinson show with Southwark Voices. She is also proud to have been an artist for Lost Chord – a charity bringing music to dementia sufferers – for the past decade and a half. Zoe has a thriving private teaching practice specialising in adult voices, including being an approved teacher for the City of London Choir, and for voice majors from Hollins University Abroad on their semester in the UK. She is the vocal consultant for WOW (Weekend Opera Workshops), and a member of AOTOS.