Sally Helanna Matthews was born in July 1975 in the English Midlands and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She joined the Royal Opera House’s young artists programme, where an early appearance in Verdi’s Falstaff brought her to wider notice. She has since sung at Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, De Nationale Opera and the Salzburg Festival. She works regularly with orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Matthews’s repertoire runs from Handel and Mozart through to Strauss, Janáček and Britten, with Blanche in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites and the title role of Janáček’s Jenůfa among her most admired assumptions. She is equally established as a concert singer, appearing in the major oratorio and orchestral-song repertoire. Her recorded work includes Orff’s Carmina Burana with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker. Critics have noted a lyric soprano of unusual warmth that has grown to carry considerable dramatic weight.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Matthews