Donna sang with the choir during its Baroque Masterworks concert in March 2007.
Donna Bateman is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, which she attended on a scholarship and distinguished herself as an award-winning music student. She won the coveted National Federation of Music Societies Award, and was a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Prize. She was awarded a further scholarship to continue her studies on the Opera Course at the Royal Academy of Music, where she graduated with Distinction and was awarded the G. Embley Memorial Prize.
Her opera roles include Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro and Helena A Midsummer Night’s Dream for English Touring Opera, Mrs Coyle Owen Wingrave, Gismonda Ottone, for the London Handel Society, Frasquita Carmen, Queen Erisbe L’Ormindo for the Sir William Walton Trust in Italy and Marzelline in Birmingham Opera Company’s Award-winning production of Fidelio directed by Graham Vick and broadcast live on BBC4. Donna returned to BOC to perform the role of Cunegonde Candide, after which she performed the role of Coralina in Il Toreador at the Batignano Opera Festival. Most recently she performed in Flashmob, broadcast live on BBC Television. Recent Operatic highlights this season include 1st Nymph and The Foreign Princess in Rusalka for Iford Arts, Pamina, Magic Flute for English Touring Opera, her debut for The Royal Opera House ROH2 as Miranda in The Gentle Giant, La Cuisinière in Le Rossignol for the CBSO at the Symphomy Hall, Birmingham, Pamina, The Magic Flute in Lisbon and Zerbinetta for Birmingham Opera Company directed by Graham Vick.
Donna Bateman’s acknowledged expertise in contemporary operatic repertoire has earned her four major engagements and three recent world premieres. These major roles include Kalypso Linen from Smyrna by Edward Rushton, Khin Myo The Piano Tuner by Nigel Osborne co-commissioned by Music Theatre Wales and the Royal Opera House, Miranda Rainland by Joseph Phibbs and Miss Pescado in Judith Weir’s Armida, which was specially commissioned for Channel 4 Television and was broadcast on Christmas day.
Donna regularly performs recitals and concerts in the UK and abroad. She was invited to sing at the opening ceremony of the World Athletics Championships, was a soloist at the Royal Albert Hall, London, for the National Insurance Awards with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, while this season she has made regular appearances in concert with The Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra. Her Oratorio engagements include St. Matthew Passion, In Terra Pax at St. John’s, Smith Square, Haydn’s St Cecilia Mass at Winchester Cathedral and Mozart’s Mass in C minor at Chichester Cathedral with the Orchestra of St John’s, conducted by John Lubbock.
Her most recent solo engagements include Mahler’s Symphony no.8 at The Symphony Hall, Birmingham, David Fanshawe’s African Sanctus broadcast live on Radio 4 from St Martin in the fields, Carmina Burana with the Nottingham Symphony Orchestra at the Albert Hall Nottingham and Bernstein’s Mass at The Barbican Hall London with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop and recorded live by Radio 3.