Howells, Anne (Elizabeth)
Howells, Anne (Elizabeth)
Howells, Anne (Elizabeth), English mezzo-soprano; b. Southport, Jan. 12, 1941. She was a student of Frederick Cox at the Royal Manchester Coll. of Music, where she sang Eros in the first English production of Gluck’s Paride ed Elena (1963). Following further training with Vera Rosza, she made her professional operatic debut as Flora in La Traviata with the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff in 1966. From 1966 she appeared regularly at the Glyndebourne Festivals. In 1967 she made her first appearance at London’s Covent Garden as Flora, returning there in subsequent years as Rosina, Cherubino, Siebel, Ascanio, Mélisande, Meg Page, De-spina, and Giulietta. In 1972 she made her U.S. debut as Dorabella with the Chicago Lyric Opera, which role she also sang at her debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y. (Oct. 15, 1975), and the San Francisco Opera (1979). She also had guest engagements in Geneva, Salzburg, Berlin, and Paris. Howells created the role of Regine in Rolf Liebermann’s La Forêt (Geneva, April 11, 1987). In 1966 she married Ryland Davies. After their divorce in 1981, she married Stafford Dean .
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire