photo by Aisla Reeve
Biography
Soprano Kirsty McLean studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban with Sarah Pring and Linda Hirst. She was generously supported by the Draper’s Hall and help a Baroness de Turkeim Scholarship. Kirsty is a Britten Pears Young Artist, Leeds Lieder Young Artist and a Wigmore Hall Young Artist having recently performed a french song programme at the Wigmore Hall for her debut there, under the guidance of Dame Felicity Lott and François le Roux. Originally from the Lake District Kirsty is a young artist for the Cumbrian Rosehill Theatre regularly performing there with pianist Anna Tilbrook.
Kirsty has worked at many of the UK’s leading opera houses including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, English Touring Opera and West Green House Opera. In 2025 Kirsty made her main stage debut at the Royal Ballet and Opera in Janaček’s Jenůfa as Jana, conducted by RBO music director designate Jakub Hrůša. Recently for the Royal Ballet and Opera Kirsty starred in Trouble and Tahiti and A Quiet Place in the Linbury Theatre directed by Oliver Mears. Kirsty also covered the role of Markéta in Kaija Sariaaho's opera 'Innocence', directed by Simon Stone and had the privilege of singing for all the stage and orchestral rehearsals on stage with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Susanna Mälkki. In 2025 for RBO she will cover the role of Ines in the revival of Adele Thomas’s Il Trovatore.
Recent roles include Gretel in Hansel und Gretel for OperaEd, Cover: Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress with Opera Glass works at Wilton’s Music Hall, Ännchen in Blackheath Opera’s Der Freischütz directed by Olly Platt, Alyson in Mahogany Opera Group’s UK tour of The Rattler- a modern day telling of the story Rumplestiltskin which opened at The Royal Festival Hall directed by Frederic Wake-Walker and Cover: Melanto/Amore in Ulysses’ Homecoming with English Touring Opera. In 2019 Kirsty made her debut as Tatyana in Eugene Onegin in a UK and France tour with Opera Loki.
Kirsty works as a peripatetic singing teacher at Woldingham Girls School and SCHS Girls School and enjoys a varied career as a crossover artist, performing worldwide with ‘IDA Girls London’ and as a soloist most recently performing on the luxury resort of Soneva Jani for NYE 2023. She was the headlining soprano for the UK Proms in the Park tour 2024.