Charlotte Kelso is an Australian soprano CURRENTLY BASED BETWEEN SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON, AND HER HOMETOWN, ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA. SHE BEGAN HER CAREER AS A MEZZO, PERFORMING REGULARLY AS A PRINCIPAL ARTIST WITH LOCAL AND NATIONAL COMPANIES IN AUSTRALIA, AND TRANSITIONED TO SOPRANO IN 2021 AFTER COMMENCING HER MASTER OF PERFORMANCE AT the Royal College of Music. SINCE THEN, CHARLOTTE HAS PERFORMED THROUGHOUT THE UK, EUROPE, AND US.

In both 2022 and 2023, Charlotte participated in the Institute for Young Dramatic Voices in Nevada, studying on the American Wagner Project under Luana DeVol and John Parr. Her position was generously sponsored by The Opera Foundation Awards in 2022, and The Wagner Society of Washington D.C. (WSWDC) in both years. The WSWDC recently invited Charlotte to D.C. to perform a recital, Vocal Vistas: An Evening of Italian and Wagnerian Arias, with tenor James Chamberlain and pianist Wei-Han Wu. She had the honour of returning to D.C. in October to perform at their 25th Anniversary Gala, following her receipt of a 2024 Grant from the WSWDC. Charlotte recently made her San Francisco debut in LIEDER ALIVE’s 2024/25 concert series, performing in recital with Australian pianist Peter Grünberg.

Charlotte recently performed Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Musetta in La Boheme for North Wales Opera. She looks forward to returning to North Wales in 2025 to make her debut in the title role of Puccini’s Tosca. This summer she reprised Donna Anna with the International Belcanto Academy, and sang the soprano solos in Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass and the Poulenc Gloria at Huddersfield Town Hall and Manchester Cathedral with St George’s Singers and the Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra.

Other concert appearances have included singing the world premiere of Jankowski’s The Voices of Silent Things and Bach’s Actus Tragicus at the Coriole Music Festival, performing as the soprano soloist in the Australian premiere of Arnesen’s Magnificat at the Australian Intervarsity Choral Festival, and featuring as soloist in the State Theatre Company’s collaboration with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Suite (“Mendelssohn’s Dream”). Charlotte was also very excited to perform “This is Hallowe’en” alongside Danny Elfman himself in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton.

As a mezzo, Charlotte was a 2018 Emerging Artist with State Opera South Australia (SOSA). She made her debut with SOSA as a soloist in their Keep the Home Fires Burning WW1 Gala Concert, and went on to perform Peep-Bo in The Mikado, Clarrie in the Wesley-Smiths’ Boojum!, and the title role in Edwards’ Christina’s World. The latter performance earned her a 2019 Adelaide Critics Circle nomination for Emerging Artist of the Year. In the 2020 Adelaide Festival, Charlotte covered Dodo in Scottish Opera’s Breaking the Waves (Mazzoli). Her other Adelaide Festival collaborations have included Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Chorus - Handel Saul; Dean Hamlet), Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (Chorus - Castellucci’s Mozart Requiem), and Ludovico’s Band (UKARIA Chamber Landscapes: Memory 3 - Beecher I Have No Stories to Tell You).

At the RCM, Charlotte studied as an RCM Scholar under Peter Savidge and Joseph Ramadan. Her studies were kindly supported by the Friends of State Opera South Australia. Charlotte created the role of Ingrid in Richie Johnsen’s opera Three Penelopes (RCM/Tête-à- Tête), and performed scenes from Les Pecheurs des Perles (Leïla), and L’amico Fritz (Suzel). She was a finalist in the 2021 Lies Askonas Competition, and was the sole soprano finalist only four months after transitioning from mezzo-soprano to soprano. In 2023, Charlotte placed third in the 2023 Llangollen International Eisteddfod’s Pendine International Voice of the Future, and she was also a finalist in the 2023 Opera Foundation for Young Australians’ Deutsche Oper Berlin and Michael Byrne Vienna State Opera Awards.

Charlotte is available for opera and concert engagements internationally. Please contact her directly for an up-to-date biography and CV.