About

Ellen Pearson

“Pearson is a wonderfully expressive performer, with great swashes of impassioned, red-blooded singing”

Richard Bratby, The Spectator

Biography

Ellen Pearson as Zweite Dame joins the curtain call for Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House, London

Ellen Pearson as Second Lady at the Royal Opera House in the David McVicar production of Die Zauberflöte, joined by Hannah Edmunds, First Lady (left) and Emma Carrington, Third Lady (right).

British mezzo-soprano Ellen Pearson is a Jette Parker Artist at the Royal Opera House (2025-27). She is also a Lies Askonas Singers’ Fellow with Askonas Holt. She is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music (First-Class Honours), and the Royal College of Music (Master’s of Music with Distinction).

Upcoming roles in the 2026/27 Season at the Royal Opera House include Blumenmädchen (Parsifal), Mercédès (Carmen), Zweite Dame (Die Zauberflöte), Second Maid (Elektra). She will cover Dorabella (Cosí Fan Tutte), La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi) and Varvara (Katya Kabanova).

“With great swashes of impassioned, red-blooded singing” (The Spectator, Richard Bratby), Ellen recently performed the roles of Julia (The Departure, Maconchy) and Irina (Four Sisters, Langer) in the Jette Parker Contemporary Chamber Opera, at the Linbury Theatre.

In the 2025/26 Royal Opera House Season, Pearson also performed the roles of Zweite Dame (Die Zauberflöte), Flora (La Traviata) and Giovanna (Rigoletto), with covers including Komorna (Makropulos Case)and Enrichetta Di Francia (I Puritani).

Other roles include La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi) at the Verbier Festival, Rosina (The Barber of Seville) at Opera Holland Park, Donna Ximena (Don Giovanni) at the Royal College of Music.

Ellen is an avid song recitalist, performing recently at Life Victoria Lied Festival (Barcelona), Internationaal Lied Festival (The Netherlands), Aldeburgh Festival, Oxford Song Festival and more.

Awards include the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards 2025, the Nigel Beale First Prize and the Anthony Lowrey Audience Prize at the 2024 Hurn Court Opera Singer of the Year and First Prize and Best Duo Prize with Archie Bonham in the 2024 Ashburnham English Song Competition.

Pearson has previously been an Opera Holland Park Young Artist, Opera Prelude Artist, an artist on the Wigmore Hall French Song Exchange programme, an Oxford International Song Young Artist, a Samling Artist, a Shipston Song Rising Star and a Britten Pears Young Artist.