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.
Beatrice Acland
Soprano
Beatrice is an English soprano currently based in London. In July 2017 Beatrice graduated from the MA Opera performance course at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with merit. Recent operatic engagements include Elvira, Don Giovanni. The Oxford Alternative Orchestra, Micaëla Carmen, Rogue Opera, Elvira (cover) Don Giovanni Longborough Festival Opera and British Youth Opera, Iris Semele Mid Wales Opera, Zhou Kommilitonen! The Welsh National Youth Opera conducted by Alice Farnham and Alice Ford Falstaff RWCMD conducted by Carlo Rizzi. Beatrice has performed alongside Sir Bryn Terfel and Rebecca Evans in the Liverpool Philharmonic's production of Falstaff under the baton of Vasily Petrenko. Highlights in opera scenes work include performing the role of Tatyana in Act 3 of Eugene Onegin with the Welsh National Opera orchestra and the role of Cecily in excerpts from Barry The Importance of Being Earnest in a joint project with RWCMD and Music Theatre Wales.
Rosamond Thomas
Mezzo-Soprano
Rosamond Thomas is a graduate of the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 2023, she sang in the World Premiere of Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone for Staatsoper Hamburg. Rosamond has performed the role of Asteria in Gluck’s La Corona for Teatro Barocco in Burg Perchtoldsdorf, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Universität (2021), Komponist in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (2021) and L’Enfant in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges(2020) in Theater Schönbrunn and Sorceress (Dido) in the Ryedale Festival 2019. She sang with the Glyndebourne Chorus for the Festival and Tour in 2022.
Experienced on the concert platform, she has enjoyed performing as a soloist in oratorios including Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt, Copland’s In the beginning, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Duruflé’s Requiem, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. Rosamond has a passion for song, with particular highlights including recitals in the Bösendorfer Salon and Gesellschaft für Musiktheater in Vienna. Rosamond was the winner of the Second Prize at Hurn Court Opera’s Singer of the Year in 2022.
Nick Dwyer
Baritone
Nick Dwyer is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Nick recently played the title role in Sweeney Todd, a Victorian Melodrama for Opera Della Luna at Wilton's, before which he performed as Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance for Celebrate Voice Festival, where he previously sang the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro.
Nick has 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 also works in the film industry, where he performed a role in Holby City (drunk Santa Claus) and as a body double for Batman.
Maximilian Lawrie
Tenor
A recent graduate of the University of Oxford, Max is an experienced choral and ensemble singer, with an increasingly wide experience and growing reputation for operatic and soloist work and is in his final year of the Postgraduate Opera Course at the Royal Academy of Music. Max portrayed a thrilling Jose in Rogue Opera’s production of Bizet’s Carmen, switching convincingly from innocent and honourable to desperate and violent note to note. Most recently, Maximilian reprised the role of Sempronio in Lo Speziale for New Chamber Opera, at the British Ambassador’s residence at the Hôtel de Charost in Paris. Other highlights included a tour with Eton College Choir to Hong Kong, where he performed the tenor solos in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms under the baton of Leonard Slatkin and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, also broadcast live on radio. In his spare time, Max likes to engage with lots of other aspects of music, including as a jazz double bassist playing in local bars and pubs; a jazz pianist, featuring on Evening Light; as a composer; and as a tutor. He is currently studying for a postgraduate degree (MA in Vocal Performance) at the Royal Academy of Music. Max takes on the role of Rodolfo for Fuller’s Opera in the Garden.
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.