| Biography | Anne Collins (29 August 1943 15 July 2009) was an English contralto.
Collins was born in Durham. She studied at the Royal College of Music, London, first the cello and then vocal studies, where her teachers included Meriel St Clair and Oda Slobodskaya.
She made her debut for Sadlers Wells Opera in 1970 as the Governess in The Queen of Spades, and went on to sing in the British stage premieres of War and Peace (Akhrosimova) in 1972 and The Bassarids (Beroe) in 1974.
She was a particularly versatile operatic singer including in her repertoire Antonia's Mother, Ulrica, Mamma Lucia, Arnalta, Adelaide, Ragonde, Clarissa, Katisha, Mrs Sedley and Filipyevna. She notably played the cello onstage while singing Lady Jane in Patience for English National Opera, a role she also sang in New York and Vienna.
Having made her Covent Garden debut in 1975 as Grimgerde in Die Walküre, she later appeared as Mary in The Flying Dutchman and the Mother Superior in The Fiery Angel. At Opera North she sang the nurse in Ariane et Barbe-bleue. She sang at the Last Night of the Proms in 1976 and 1980, as well as taking part in concert performances of Patience, The Midsummer Marriage and The Gypsy Baron at the Proms. She played Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor at Wexford in 1976. Collins was engaged at several European opera houses including Brussels, Frankfurt, Hamburg and La Scala. After her debut in Geneva in 1977 (First Norn), Collins returned from 1990 to 1993 to sing Auntie in Peter Grimes, The Hostess in Boris Godunov, and Marcelina in Le Nozze di Figaro.[3] She appeared in Ezio and Hercules for the Handel Opera Society. Her Glyndebourne debut was as Florence Pike in Albert Herring in 1986.[4] She created the role of the Nurse/Old woman in Ines de Castro for Scottish Opera in 1996.
In 1982, she appeared in the Brent Walker Productions' telefilms of Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience (as Lady Jane), Iolanthe, (the Fairy Queen), Princess Ida (Lady Blanche), The Mikado (Katisha), and The Gondoliers (Duchess of Plaza-Toro). She also recorded the role of Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard in 1993 with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. |