Harper, Heather (Mary)
Harper, Heather (Mary)
Harper, Heather (Mary), distinguished Irish soprano; b. Belfast, May 8, 1930. She studied at Trinity Coll. of Music in London and also took voice lessons with Helene Isepp and Frederic Husler. She made her debut as Lady Macbeth with the Oxford Univ. Opera in 1954. She was a member of the English Opera Group (1956–75); first sang at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1957, at Covent Garden as Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1962, and at the Bayreuth Festival as Elsa in 1967; also sang in the U.S. and South America. Although she formally retired as a singer in 1990, she sang with Rattle and the City of Birmingham Sym. Orch. at the London Proms in 1994. From 1985 she was a prof. at the Royal Coll. of Music in London; she also was director of singing studies at the Britten-Pears School in Snape (from 1986) and the first visiting lecturer-in-residence at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow (from 1987). Her notable roles included Arabella, Marguerite, Antonia, Gutrune, Hecuba, Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, The Woman in Erwartung, and Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes; she also created the role of Nadia in Tippett’s The Ice Break (1977). An esteemed concert artist, she sang in the premieres of Britten’s War Requiem (1962) and Tippett’s 3rd Sym. (1972). In 1965 she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire