Janet Todd

Soprano

Melbourne Soprano Janet Todd completed her Bachelor of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne University in 2009. While studying, Janet performed numerous roles in concert, including Galatea (Acis and Galatea), Belinda (Dido and Aeneas) and Tytania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). She also sang regularly as a soloist with the VCA Orchestra in Bach Cantatas at St. John’s Church and won the Margaret Sutherland Bursary Fund Award in her final year.

In 2009 Janet was equal runner up in the Herald Sun Aria and in 2010 won the Opera Foundation Australia AIMS Award as well as the AIMS Sundell Study award, subsequently attending the American Institute of Musical Studies Summer School in Graz, Austria. She was also the recipient of a Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust Scholarship for 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Janet made her debut with Victorian Opera as Pamina in The Magic Flute, going on to perform Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier excerpts for the Richard Gill Gala Concert, The Prince in the Cinderella pantomime, Liesgen in Bach’s Coffee Cantata in the Baroque Triple Bill (for which she was nominated for a Green Room Award) as well as understudying the soprano roles in both Monteverdi’s The Fight between Tancredi and Clorinda and Bach’s The Fight between Phoebus and Pan for the company. She also performed in several Victorian Youth Opera productions including Gossip in Noye’s Fludde, Gerda in The Snow Queen and Lauretta in their workshop program of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.  Other performances have included Love and the Art of War with Ensemble E21 and with Ludovico’s Band, as part of the Utzon Music Series in 2009, and Cindy in Contact ! by Melbourne composer Angus Grant in the Carnegie 18 series.

Janet’s many concert performances include appearances with More Than Opera, the Melbourne University Choral Society, the Astra Choir, Messiah with the Canberra Choral Society, The National Boys Choir’s Christmas Concert, and St. John Passion with the Choir of Trinity College, Melbourne.

Recent engagements have included the roles of both Donna Elvira and Zerlina in Don Giovanni for Opera Australia’s OzOpera tour; Pamina in The Magic Flute for Opera Australia’s Opera on the Beach, Coolangatta; soprano soloist in The Australian Ballet’s double bill Elegy choreographed by Stephen Baynes as well as their Vanguard tripe bill program; Marsinah in Kismet with The Production Company in Melbourne and her debut with Pinchgut Opera as Nanette in Salieri’s The Chimney Sweep.

Janet was awarded the 2015 Dame Heather Begg Award, which has enabled her to embark on a 2 year Masters program at the Manhattan School of Music, New York where she recently featured in Mozart’s C Minor mass.