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, Bronwen has created, written the English libretto and directed this new production 'A Modern Opera Love Story' for Fuller’s Opera in the Garden.
Guy Murgatroyd
Music Director
Pianist
British pianist Guy enjoys a modest reputation as one of a leading generation of pianists pliable to many musical roles.
Having worked with diverse musicians, including Leslie Howard, Elly Ameling and Andrew Lloyd Webber, along with contemporary composers including Rolf Hind, Edward Rushton and Nikolai Kapustin, Guy is no stranger to most corners of the repertoire. He had a scholarship at Birmingham Conservatoire in 2012 and recently completed postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Guy is also the founder and director of the London Art Song Collective which aims to further the performance of 20th century art song, an undervalued and untapped repertoire. The collective features over 50 singers, hand-chosen for various projects spanning over 450 composers and 25 languages.
Having assisted with Carmen in 2018, Guy took on full musical direction for Rogue Opera in 2019 and was integral to the company’s 2020/21 pandemic online program. Guy has the superhuman ability to fill in for a whole orchestra in Rogue Opera’s compact productions and is the essential fifth character in Fuller’s Opera in the Garden.
Jonathan Cooke
Tenor
Jonathan Cooke is a versatile tenor, equally comfortable on the operatic stage, concert platform, and choral circuit.
He graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) in 2015 with a Master of Music degree. Principal roles whilst studying include Ruggero in Puccini's La Rondine (RCS), Tamino in the Young Opera Venture’s touring production of The Magic Flute and Le Mari in Poulenc’s surreal one-act opera Les Mamelles de Tiresias (RCS).
Since moving to London, Jonathan’s operatic roles have been many and varied, though recently he has been focussing on the larger lyric roles, including Rodolfo La Bohème (cover, Mid Wales Opera), Don José Carmen (Various companies), Hoffmann The Tales of Hoffmann (Kentish Opera), Pinkerton Madame Butterfly (Opera Up Close), and Cavaradossi Tosca (Various companies).
Concert highlights include Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and St. Nicolas, Elgar The Kingdom, Verdi Requiem, Rossini Petite Messe Solenelle and Handel Messiah.
Jonathan and his wife (also a professional singer) welcomed a baby girl into the fold last September, and are both getting to grips with balancing their careers alongside full-time parenting. This notwithstanding, over the summer Jonathan will perform the roles of Beadle Bamford Sweeney Todd(West Green House Opera), and Gastone La Traviata(St Endellion Summer Festival). He is also helping to develop roles in Gaṅgā, an exciting new opera by Jataneel Banerjee based on the Hindu epic Mahabharata.
Emily Sloan
Soprano
Emily studied for her Masters at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance where she graduated with Distinction in Vocal Performance under the tuition of Mezzo - Soprano Sarah Pring. Emily is currently on the Jette Parker Mentorship scheme with Anush Hovhannisyan and took part in the Berlin Dramatic Voices Training programme in the summer of 2022.
Emily covered Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor for Instant Opera in late 2022 as well as singing extracts of the Marschallin for Uncovered Opera's Strauss performance in November 2022. Emily's other roles include Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte, Rosina in The Ghosts of Versailles, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Aunt Norris in Mansfield Park, and Mathilde in Guillaume Tell. In the run up to Christmas 2022 Emily took part in Rogue Opera’s Christmas show tour as a last-minute jump in.
On the concert platform Emily has performed at De Montford Hall, and has sung the Solos in Handel's Messiah, Rutter's Mass of the Children, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Bach's Missa Brevis, Handel's Dixit Dominus, Vivaldi's Gloria, and Haydn's Nelson Mass.
As well as a busy performance career, Emily co-founded All Aboard Opera!, the key pillars of which are Accessibility, Innovation and Adventure.
Sam Young
Baritone
British baritone Sam Young trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, having previously studied at Bath Spa University. His awards include the Chartered Surveyor’s Vocal Prize at GSMD and the Bath Spa University Music Performance Award. He was a finalist in the Dean and Chadlington Singing Competition in 2015. This year, Sam will be making his debut with Glyndebourne Festival Opera as part of the chorus in their upcoming semi-staged concert production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
As well as numerous opera roles, including Papageno in The Magic Flute and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Sam has appeared in concerts across the UK, Europe and China. In 2019 he performed as a soloist for Downton Abbey Live with the Chamber Orchestra of London at Highclere Castle, and again with the City Lights Symphony Orchestra at KKL Luzern, Switzerland. Sam’s Rogue Opera debut was as Leporello in Don Giovanni and he portrayed ‘Escamillo – The Alpha Male’ in Rogue Opera's A Modern Opera Love Story production for Fuller's in 2021.
Thank you for coming with us on this Rogue Opera journey through some of opera's best arias, duets and ensembles. If you haven't had a chance to see the fantastic stories these pieces are borrowed from, we hope your interest is piqued to explore further!