Bio
Catrine Kirkman is a soprano, actress, writer and storyteller based in London, UK.
Described by David Nice in The Arts Desk as “unsung comedy performer of the year” and praised for performances that are “the stuff of which awards are made”, Catrine has established a distinctive reputation as a singing actress of rare comic and dramatic range.
Born in Wales, Catrine trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she was awarded the Russell-Davies Prize and the First Prize and Audience Prize at the John Kerr English Song Competition. She has been supported by the Chandos Memorial Trust, the John Edmonds Charity, the Benslow Music Trust, the Leverhulme Trust and the Britten-Pears Programme.
A former Britten-Pears Young Artist, Catrine has worked with companies and organisations across the UK and internationally including Opera Holland Park, Scottish Opera, English Touring Opera, Iford Arts, D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, The National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company, Charles Court Opera, Tete a Tete, Regents Opera, the Bregenz Festival, Carl Rosa Opera Company, Opera Up Close, Opera Brava, Midsummer Opera, Stanley Hall Opera and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Season highlights in 25/26 include her debut at Buxton International Festival, performing Paulina in a new production of The Merry Widow and chorus in La Traviata, running through July in Buxton before moving to Norwich in August. She returns to Charles Court Opera — following her Fringe Theatre Awards nomination for Lady Jane in Patience — as Lady Mountarrat in Iolanthe, performing at Wilton’s Music Hall and on tour to Lichfield, Buxton, Bury St Edmunds, Hever and Winchester. In 26/27, Catrine will reprise the role of Katisha in The Mikado with Charles Court Opera at Wilton’s Music Hall.
Recent operatic highlights include Katisha in The Mikado and Lady Jane in Patience — both with Charles Court Opera in 2025 — Lady Sanguzure in The Sorcerer (Charles Court Opera, 2024), Musetta in La Bohème at Rhosygilwen, and Edith in The Pirates of Penzance and Celia in Iolanthe with the National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. Earlier Charles Court Opera credits include Mad Margaret in Ruddigore, Angelina in Trial by Jury — hailed by The Arts Desk’s David Nice as featuring “among the most tear-inducingly witty half-hours I’ve ever enjoyed on the London stage” — and Hebe in the Offie award-winning production of HMS Pinafore.
Catrine has worked extensively with English Touring Opera as a soloist, singing the roles of Isiphile in Cavalli’s Jason — described by Richard Morrison in The Times as “persuasive and graceful” and by The Independent as “a delicate soprano nicely counterbalancing” her colleague’s Medea — Drusilla in The Coronation of Poppea, Miss Hedgehog in Fantastic Mr Fox, praised by Opera Britannia as “a delight, both in terms of characterisation and the manner in which she sang”, Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro, First Lady in The Magic Flute and Glasha in Katya Kabanova.
Other operatic highlights include Oscar in Un ballo in maschera and Gretel in Hansel und Gretel for Midsummer Opera, First Lady and Papagena in The Magic Flute at Iford Arts Festival, Isabel in The Pirates of Penzance with Scottish Opera and D’Oyly Carte, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw for Opera Up Close, described by The Guardian as “superbly realised”.
Also experienced in period performance, Catrine has premiered the roles of Asteria in Il Medo and Laodice in Hasse’s Siroe with Ensemble Serse, of whom Opera Magazine wrote that her Act 2 aria was “a highlight of the evening”. She has also performed Daphne in Acteon with the Britten-Pears Young Artists and Ascanio in Cavalli’s La Didone with Christian Curnyn.
As an international soloist Catrine has performed in the USA, France, Germany, Cyprus, Lanzarote, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and at the Bregenz Festival, Austria, where she performed Make-Up Girl in Benedict Mason’s Playing Away directed by David Pountney, and French Girl in Yoshi Oida’s celebrated production of Death in Venice at both the Aldeburgh and Bregenz Festivals. As a member of the Bregenz Festival Chorus she also appeared in the famous lakeside production of Tosca — which features prominently in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.
As a writer and creator, Catrine devised and performed Unbreakable Bond, a one-woman show about Jessie Bond — the soubrette star of the Savoy operas — performed at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Harrogate and Buxton. She subsequently won a prestigious commission from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Bishopsgate Institute to create ‘Ms Midlife’, a modern-day beauty pageant drawing on the Bishopsgate archive and blending women-composed music with wit and debate about women in middle life, which premiered at the Bishopsgate Institute in June 2023 directed by Mojisola Kareem.
In concert, Catrine has worked with many distinguished conductors, including Sir Colin Davis — under whose baton she sang at the farewell concert for Guildhall School principal Ian Horsbrugh — Paul Daniel, Edward Gardner, John Andrews, Richard Egarr, Emmanuelle Haïm, Christian Curnyn, Micheal Seal and Steven Stubbs, and has performed at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, the Purcell Room, St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, the Globe Theatre and Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
In 2023 she appeared as singer-storyteller in Before the Firebird, an interactive musical work by Paul Rissmann and Hazel Gould for the London Philharmonic Orchestra, performing for young audiences at the Royal Festival Hall. She works regularly as a soloist with the Psallite Women’s Choir under the direction of Nancy Hadden, and was privileged to be a soloist in the first early song concert at the Oxford Lieder Festival with Joe McHardy. She can also be heard on the Heresy Records releases Motions of the Heart and The Last Discs with the Dublin Drag Orchestra, and as hostess of the inn on the Naxos Records release of Edward German’s Tom Jones.
Catrine has also appeared on Sky Arts television and plays the title role in the feature film In Love With Alma Cogan, starring alongside Roger Lloyd Pack, Niamh Cusack and John Hurt, now available on Amazon Prime.
Alongside her performing career, Catrine works as a birth doula and serves as the South East representative for Doula UK, supporting women and families through pregnancy, birth and the early days of parenthood.