MEET THE CAST
Bronwen Stephens-Harding
Founder, Director and Scriptwriter
Mezzo-Soprano
At the age of eight, Bronwen declared her wish to be an opera singer. After a varied career, combining corporate marketing with busking, choral singing, opera performance and singing studies, she is now pursuing her dream full-time. After achieving a Diploma in Opera & Performance from Associated Studios in London and working in the UK and Europe, Bronwen founded Rogue Opera in 2018 with a vision of bringing opera to new audiences and unconventional spaces. As well as singing the title role in Rogue Opera’s inaugural season of Bizet’s Carmen, Bronwen directed the production and saw it performed in a variety of venues.
Working with a dedicated troupe of musicians and seeing her concepts come to life on the stage have been a high point in her musical career, which continued with the company’s second season, presenting a vibrant, contemporary reimagining of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in 2019, which Bronwen directed. In the second revival tour she also performed the role of Donna Elvira. The challenges presented by Covid-19 in 2020 have taken Bronwen and Rogue Opera into new ventures, broadcasting over 45 livestream performances and building an archive over 100 video performances of arias and ensembles, providing creative work for Rogue Opera artists and introducing new audiences to opera.
Delighted to be back to in-person events in 2021, Bronwen created, wrote the English libretto and directed a new production 'A Modern Opera Love Story' for Fuller’s Opera in the Garden. The association with Fuller's has continued with two further very successful summer tours, presenting an exciting and engaging gala program in a wide variety of pub gardens.
For the 2024 summer tour of Carmen Re-imagined, Bronwen wrote the English dialogue, directed and sang the title role of Carmen.
2025 saw the debut of Bronwen’s second Re-imagined work, in which she has set Mozart’s Così fan tutte in modern New York, where a desire for celebrity, status and money provides the background for the opera’s convoluted story of love, deceit and betrayal. In this production, Bronwen sang the role of Dorabella.
2026 is shaping up to be another busy year for Rogue Opera, with a number of gala performances, a revival of Carmen Re-imagined and the founding of the outreach arm of the company, Rogue Opera Outreach.
Blanca Graciá Rodríguez
Music Director
Pianist
Spanish répétiteur Blanca Graciá Rodríguez has always been passionate about vocal repertoire. She graduated with honours from the Master’s programme in Collaborative Piano at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, where she studied with Jeanne-Minette Cilliers. She was a member of the 2023–24 Young Artist Programme at the National Opera Studio in London and most recently served as a Trainee Répétiteur for the 2025–26 season at the English National Opera.
Rodríguez has worked on numerous opera productions, including Ernani and Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Ballet Vlaanderen under the batons of Julia Jones and Marie Jacquot respectively. She has collaborated with conductors including Clelia Cafiero, Yi-Chen Li, Matthew Kofi Waldren and Kerem Hasan.
Alongside her operatic work, she is an active performer of chamber music and art song, having participated at festivals such as the Oxford Lieder Festival Young Artist Programme and SongEasel in London. She was a finalist in the II Certamen Internacional de Lied y Canción (Spain, 2018), the Galantes Talanti Competition (Latvia, 2022) and the Ashburnham English Song Awards(2025), and received third prize at the International Music Competition France in 2022.
Nick Dwyer
Baritone
Nick continues his association with Rogue Opera, after returning for his second Fuller’s Opera in the Garden tour last year. In 2024 he played the title role in Sweeney Todd, a Victorian Melodrama for Opera Della Luna at Wilton’s, a show reviving this summer in Bath and Manchester. Prior to this he performed as the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance for Celebrate Voice Festival, where he previously sang the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro.
Nick is a graduate of Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and has since performed over 300 performances as Marcello in Opera Up Close's Olivier Award winning La Bohème. Elsewhere, roles include Flemish Deputy in Don Carlo at Grange Park Opera, where he previously performed as Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin whilst understudying the title role. Nick has ventured into music theatre as Javert in Les Misérables for Pimlico Opera Prisons Project, featuring the inmates of HMP Erlestoke. Nick has also worked in the film industry, where he performed a role in Holby City (drunk Santa Claus) and as a body double for Batman.
David Powton
Tenor
David Powton gained his MA in Opera Performance from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, studying with Adrian Thompson and Nicki Rose, generously supported by the Leverhulme Foundation and the Manning Prize for Tenors. Roles include The Mayor (Albert Herring, Britten), Basilio (Le Nozze di Figaro, Mozart), Caius (Falstaff, Verdi) and Alfred (Die Fledermaus, Strauss).
David has performed as a soloist with Royal Northern Sinfonia. Concert performances include Seven Last Words from the Cross (MacMillan), A Child of Our Time (Tippett) and Verdi Requiem. Recent performances include Nemorino in L’Elisir d’amore (Donizetti) with Opera’r Ddraig, Basilio in Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart) with Random Opera and Marat/Dupont in Black, el payaso (Sorozàbal) with Cervantes Theatre.
Emily Wishart
Soprano
Scottish soprano Emily Wishart graduated from the Royal College of Music in July 2025 with a Master of Performance (Vocal), studying under the tutelage of Ben Johnson and Caroline Dowdle. She previously earned her Bachelor of Music (Hons) at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2021, where she worked closely with mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill as part of the Associate Artist programme.
Recent opera highlights include singing the roles of Belinda in Dido and Aeneas at the Northern Chords Festival and Zerlina in the Brunswick Vocal Arts Concert Highlights of Don Giovanni. Emily also performed several roles in the RCM Opera Scenes productions, such as Amore (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Sandrina (La finta giardiniera), Ernestine (Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le…) and Ginevra (Ariodante). Whilst at the RCS, Emily’s roles in the Opera Scenes included Emmie in Albert Herring, Flora in Turn of the Screw, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, and Madam Herz in Der Schauspieldirektor.
On the concert platform, Emily recently performed a programme featuring Schumann’s Frauenliebe und leben and Thea Musgrave’s Songs for a Winter’s Evening cycles at the Royal Albert Hall’s Classical Coffee Morning Series. In June 2025, Emily performed a recital programme of Scots Songs at St James’s Church, Piccadilly and in November, she competed and won Third Prize in the inaugural Scottish Singing Competition at the Caledonian Club of London. Upcoming performances include recitals at the Henley Festival in July and at the Aylesbury Lunchtime Music series in September.