Allison Oakes © Iona MacPherson
Allison Oakes
British born Allison Oakes first qualified as a Diagnostic Radiographer before studying music in Germany. Her vocal studies were with Professor Gudrun Fischer. Allison has also participated in international vocal competitions where she has won numerous prizes including the first prize, the audience prize and the orchestral prize at the International Lauritz-Melchior Wagner Competition 2010 in Aalborg. Directly following her studies, Allison became an artist in residence at Staatstheater Darmstadt, singing principal roles such as Tosca, Leonora (“Il Trovatore”), Margarita (in the European Premiere of Osvaldo Golijovs contemporary opera “Ainadamar”), Elisabetta (“Don Carlos”), Marie (“Die verkaufte Braut”) and Gräfin (“Wiener Blut”) under the baton of Stefan Blunier and Lukas Beikircher.
Since 2009/2010, her career has taken her all over the world as a freelance soprano but she has made her base in Berlin. During this time Allison has sang: Miss Jessel (“The Turn of the Screw”) at Teatro La Fenice di Venezia (conductor Jeffrey Tate) and at Opera Frankfurt, Elsa (“Lohengrin”) at Theater Regensburg, Theater Coburg and Theater Basel (conductor Axel Kober), Senta (“Der fliegende Holländer”) at Wuppertaler Bühnen, the Boston Lyric Opera and Theater St. Gallen, Marie (“Wozzeck”) at Opéra de Dijon with the SWR Symphony Orchestra (conductor Enrico Pomarico), Salome at Deutsche Oper Berlin (conductor Alain Altinoglu), Cape Town Opera (conductor Gerard Korsten) and Staatsoper Hamburg (conductor Kent Nagano).
Between 2013 and 2015, Allison sang the role of Gerhilde in “Die Walküre”, Gutrune in “Die Götterdämmerung” and Freia in “Das Rheingold” in the Frank Castorf Bayreuth Ring Cycle under the musical direction of Kiril Petrenko. 2017 – as in 2016 – she will continue as Gutrune in Bayreuth under the baton of Marek Janowski.
Last season Allison made her debut as Isolde (“Tristan und Isolde”) in Dortmund. Upcoming projects include Isolde at the Teatro Verdi di Trieste in spring 2017. In the season 2017/18 she will sing Chrysothemis at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and at the Metropolitan Opera New York.
As of August 2017