Jane Eaglen (born April 4, 1960) is an English operatic soprano.

One… Read Full Bio ↴Jane Eaglen (born April 4, 1960) is an English operatic soprano.

One of the major performers in the opera world today, enjoying some degree of success in the dramatic soprano roles of Isolde (for the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Gran Teatro del Liceu (Barcelona), Lyric Opera of Chicago, and in Puerto Rico), Leonore, and Brünnhilde (performed in Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Milan, New York and the UK).

Other major performances include Bellini's Norma (performed for the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Ravenna Festival with Maestro Muti, and the Bastille); Ariadne for Seattle Opera and in London; Senta (Der Fliegende Holländer) in concert with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra; Ortrud (Lohengrin) for Seattle Opera; La Gioconda in Chicago and London; Donna Anna in New York, Vienna, Los Angeles, Munich and Bologna; and many others.

Her work on the concert platform includes performances of Strauss’ Four Last Songs with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Strauss’ final scene of Salome with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, and Sir Richard Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra; Wagner’s Immolation Scene with both Bernard Haitink and Jeffrey Tate and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Zubin Mehta and the NY Phil; Verdi’s Requiem with Daniele Gatti and the Orchestra of St Cecilia, Rome; Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with Klaus Tennstedt; Nabucco with Riccardo Muti for the Ravenna Festival; Gurrelieder with Claudio Abbado for the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals; Die Walkure and Siegfried with James Conlon in Cologne; and many others.

Born in Lincoln, England, in the North Midlands. It was a neighbor who first spotted Jane's musical interest, and she started piano lessons at the age of five, continuing until she was sixteen. Her piano teacher then suggested she take singing lessons, and for a year she studied with a local teacher. "One day you will sing Norma and Brünnhilde", her teacher told her to which Jane asked "Are they good?" "Yeah, yeah," her teacher replied, "they're pretty good". Eaglen confesses she didn't know anything about opera back then. She just knew her voice sounded like a choirboy's - sweet and pure - and that the sound wasn't suited to pop music.

After having been turned down by the Guildhall School in London, Jane auditioned at age eighteen for Joseph Ward, the voice professor at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Ward recognized her potential, and took Ms. Eaglen on as a student. Within weeks Ward had directed her toward the roles such as Norma and Brünnhilde. "He spotted four or five notes in the middle of my voice that sounded like something," Eaglen recalls. "He believed that I'd sing the opera of Bellini and Wagner eventually, so we might as well start finding a way to make my voice travel by beginning to learn the music and the styles. We worked on bits from Bellini and Wagner from the time I was 18. But it was only the bits I could sing - lines from 'Casta Diva' from Norma or Sieglinde's music from Die Walküre, but without the high notes" Said Ward, "It's better to learn the style of what you will sing, even if you don't have the notes".

In 1984 she joined the English National Opera, and spent a couple of years singing the First Lady in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Berta, the servant in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. Other roles included Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore. When she was cast as Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, audiences went wild.

Eaglen broke into the major opera scene when she was cast as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Scottish Opera. She went on to sing Tosca and Norma with that company. She made her American debut as Norma in 1994 with Seattle Opera as a last-minute replacement for Carol Vaness.

Eaglen sang her first Brünnhilde with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1996. Her first Isolde came in 1998 with the Seattle Opera, a company she has returned to consistently. She repeated the role in 1999 in Chicago and in 2000 at the Metropolitan Opera.

Jane Eaglen Lyrics