OperaUpClose announces Flora McIntosh as Artistic Director
OperaUpClose (OUC) is very pleased to announce the appointment of Flora McIntosh as the organisation’s new Artistic Director, taking over the role from Robin Norton Hale, who is leaving to become General Director at English Touring Opera.
Flora is a highly experienced and respected performer, facilitator and teacher, already very well known to OperaUpClose audiences, and creatives, having sung multiple roles for the company to great critical acclaim. She took on the advisory role of OperaUpClose’s Artistic Associate in 2019, helping shape artistic content and direction, alongside fundraising strategy, throughout the pandemic, and in the following months of recovery. Flora now expands this role to lead OperaUpClose as we fully establish ourselves as a resident partner company at the cultural hub of MAST Southampton.
Flora says:
“It is an honour and a privilege to take on the role of OUC Artistic Director, expanding and re-focusing the work and impact of an organisation I know and love. I am passionate about embedding ourselves as a partner at the brilliant & dynamic cultural hub at MAST, developing lasting multi-disciplinary partnerships and opening up our creative process to audiences and local communities. This is a major transformational stage of OUC’s development and a thrilling opportunity to develop our reputation as a truly innovative force in UK opera.”
OperaUpClose Chair, Abigail Toland, says:
“The Board and I are delighted that Flora is stepping into the role of Artistic Director. Flora has impressed us with her clear vision for OperaUpClose – building on all that Robin has achieved and now taking the company forward into an exciting future of creative collaboration. We look forward to seeing OperaUpClose flourish under Flora’s artistic direction both at our home at MAST, and around the country with the many partner organisations with whom she has already established strong relationships.”
About Flora McIntosh
Flora is a singer, an actor and a storyteller praised for her ‘wonderfully rich’ mezzo soprano, ‘vivid’ characterisation & ‘thrilling’ stage presence. She has performed at venues across Europe and the UK with recent & notable performances including, for Longborough Festival Opera: Waltraute (Die Walkure), Wellgunde (Das Rheingold), Dryade (Ariadne auf Naxos) & Brangane (Tristan und Isolde - cover); Das Lied von Der Erde (English National Ballet, tour/London Coliseum), Pauline in Gounod’s Polyeucte (UK premiere) & Romeo I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Grimeborn/BBC).
‘Flora McIntosh’s astonishing Pauline is a really serious mezzo voice, bursting with focused passion’
Robert Thickenesse, Opera Now
‘Flora McIntosh sang Romeo with extraordinary vividness. Bruised, dishevelled and determined, she
was nobody's dreamboat but a brooding, convincingly male figure of Hamlet-like darkness.’
Mark Valencia, Whatsonstage