Buddug Verona James
Encyclopedia
Buddug Verona James is a Welsh
mezzo-soprano
opera singer who studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
, the National Opera Studio
and in Rome
. She was born in Cardigan
, Wales
.
's Orfeo
in America and Canada, Dardano in Handel
’s Amadigi
in New York
and Europe
, and Cherubino in Mozart
's The Marriage of Figaro
in Tokyo
and Toronto
.
She has worked with Netherlands Opera
, Cleveland Opera (USA), Glyndebourne
, Almeida Opera, Opera Theatre Company, Opera Northern Ireland, Opera North
, Opera Atelier
, Opera Circus, English Pocket Opera, Opera 80
, Cambridge Handel Opera Group, Operavox Cartoons, Siobhan Davies Dance Company
, Music Theatre Wales
and Mid Wales Opera.
On her website, she describes herself as “Opera Singer, Actress and Butcher”, because before pursuing her studies she worked in one of her father's butcher shops in Cardigan and won an award for her artistry in the Royal Welsh Show
in 1978.
She has premiered in operas by Gerald Barry, Jonathan Dove
, Deirdre Gribbin
, Wolfgang Rihm
and John Woolrich.
She has filmed numerous straight acting roles for BBC
, HTV
and S4C
and recently performed Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet
for the National Theatre of Wales.
Buddug is on the professorial staff in the department of Vocal and Opera Studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama
(RWCMD). She has also directed The Pirates of Penzance
, Ruddigore
, Acis and Galatea, Dido and Aeneas
, Orpheus in the Underworld
and Hercules for RWCMD.
In 2001 Buddug and her siblings performed in the Millennium Stadium
as pre match entertainment before a Wales/Ireland rugby union match.
She also appears on:
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
opera singer who studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England. Students can pursue courses in Music, Opera, Drama and Technical Theatre Arts.-History:...
, the National Opera Studio
National Opera Studio
The National Opera Studio in London, England was established by the Arts Council as a link between the music colleges and the six main UK opera companies. It was resident at Morley College in Lambeth until 2003, when it gained use for the first time of its own dedicated premises in Chapel Yard,...
and in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. She was born in Cardigan
Cardigan, Ceredigion
Cardigan is a town in the county of Ceredigion in Mid Wales. It lies on the estuary of the River Teifi at the point where Ceredigion meets Pembrokeshire. It was the county town of the pre-1974 county of Cardiganshire. It is the second largest town in Ceredigion. The town's population was 4,203...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
.
Career
Among her operatic roles Buddug has performed GluckChristoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
's Orfeo
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
in America and Canada, Dardano in Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
’s Amadigi
Amadigi di Gaula
Amadigi di Gaula is a magical opera in three acts, with music by George Frideric Handel. It was the fifth Italian opera that Handel wrote for London and was composed during his stay at Burlington House in 1715...
in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and Cherubino in Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
and Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
.
She has worked with Netherlands Opera
De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera , in Amsterdam, is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Het Muziektheater, a modern building designed by Cees Dam which opened in 1986....
, Cleveland Opera (USA), Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne is a country house, thought to be about six hundred years old, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England. It is also the site of an opera house which, with the exception of its closing during the Second World War, for a few immediate post-war years, and in 1993 during the...
, Almeida Opera, Opera Theatre Company, Opera Northern Ireland, Opera North
Opera North
Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle...
, Opera Atelier
Opera atelier
Opéra Atelier, a Canadian Baroque opera company was founded in 1985 in Toronto by husband and wife duo Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg. The company mounts operas from the 17th and 18th centuries which are presented at the Elgin Theatre....
, Opera Circus, English Pocket Opera, Opera 80
English Touring Opera
English Touring Opera is an opera company in the United Kingdom. From 1979 to 1992 it was known as Opera 80.- About the company :Opera 80 was founded in 1979 by the Arts Council of Great Britain as the successor to Opera For All; in 1992 the company changed its name to English Touring Opera...
, Cambridge Handel Opera Group, Operavox Cartoons, Siobhan Davies Dance Company
Siobhan Davies Dance Company
Siobhan Davies Dance is one of the UK's leading contemporary dance companies founded in 1988 by Siobhan Davies, previously a dancer and choreographer with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre...
, Music Theatre Wales
Music Theatre Wales
Music Theatre Wales is a touring contemporary opera company, based in Cardiff, Wales. MTW performs newly commissioned works, alongside existing pieces from the recent past which are either neglected or have been unseen in the UK. Works are toured across the UK and internationally...
and Mid Wales Opera.
On her website, she describes herself as “Opera Singer, Actress and Butcher”, because before pursuing her studies she worked in one of her father's butcher shops in Cardigan and won an award for her artistry in the Royal Welsh Show
Royal Welsh Show
The Royal Welsh Show is the biggest agricultural show in Europe. It is organised by the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, which was formed in 1904, and takes place in July of each year, at Llanelwedd, near Builth Wells, in Powys, Mid Wales....
in 1978.
She has premiered in operas by Gerald Barry, Jonathan Dove
Jonathan Dove
Jonathan Dove is a British composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera , including in 1990 a famous 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner's Der Ring des...
, Deirdre Gribbin
Deirdre Gribbin
Deirdre Gribbin is a composer from Northern Ireland. She studied at Queen's University Belfast where, at the age of twenty, she began to compose. Further studies were in London and in Denmark...
, Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer.Rihm is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival...
and John Woolrich.
She has filmed numerous straight acting roles for BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, HTV
HTV
HTV, now legally known as ITV Wales & West, is the ITV contractor for Wales and the West of England, which operated from studios in Cardiff and Bristol. The company provided commercial television for the dual-region 'Wales and West' franchise, which it won from TWW in 1968...
and S4C
S4C
S4C , currently branded as S4/C, is a Welsh television channel broadcast from the capital, Cardiff. The first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking audience, it is the fifth oldest British television channel .The channel - initially broadcast on...
and recently performed Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
for the National Theatre of Wales.
Buddug is on the professorial staff in the department of Vocal and Opera Studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama
The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama is a conservatoire within the University of Glamorgan Group located in Cardiff, Wales....
(RWCMD). She has also directed The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
, Acis and Galatea, Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...
, Orpheus in the Underworld
Orpheus in the Underworld
Orphée aux enfers is an opéra bouffon , or opéra féerie in its revised version, by Jacques Offenbach. The French text was written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux....
and Hercules for RWCMD.
In 2001 Buddug and her siblings performed in the Millennium Stadium
Millennium Stadium
The Millennium Stadium is the national stadium of Wales, located in the capital, Cardiff. It is the home of the Wales national rugby union team and also frequently stages games of the Wales national football team, but is also host to many other large scale events, such as the Super Special Stage...
as pre match entertainment before a Wales/Ireland rugby union match.
Discography
- Buddug Verona James Castradïva
- Buddug Verona James Songs of the People.
She also appears on:
- Thomas Chilcot Songs and Concertos.
- The James Sisters Sing Gospel
Awards
- Welsh Singers CompetitionWelsh Singers CompetitionThe Welsh Singers Competition is a singing competition that is held in Cardiff, Wales. The winner of the competition represents Wales in the biennial BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. The Competition is open to Welsh singers at the early stages of their career...
1986
- In 2001 Buddug was honoured with the Druidic White Robe of Gorsedd y BeirddGorseddA gorsedd plural gorseddau, is a community or coming together of modern-day bards. The word is of Welsh origin, meaning "throne". It is occasionally spelled gorsedh , or goursez in Brittany....
at the National EisteddfodNational Eisteddfod of WalesThe National Eisteddfod of Wales is the most important of several eisteddfodau that are held annually, mostly in Wales.- Organisation :...
.