Felicity Palmer

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Felicity Joan Palmer (born April 6, 1944) is an English mezzo-soprano (soprano until 1983).

She was born in Cheltenham and studied at the Guildhall School of Music in London and under Marianne Schech at the Munich College for Music and Theatre. In April 1970, she won first prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship.

She made her operatic debut in 1971 as Dido in Dido and Aeneas with Kent Opera. In 1973, she made her US debut with the Houston Grand Opera, and in 1975 debuted with English National Opera. She has since performed regularly at the world's major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Scala, Milan, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Opéra Bastille in Paris and the Glyndebourne and Wexford Festivals.

She is a professor at the Royal College of Music in London, and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in November 1993.

Felicity Palmer has also performed with Scottish Opera, Opera North and Welsh National Opera, and has performed and recorded Gilbert and Sullivan operas, as Katisha in The Mikado (ENO and WNO), Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard (WNO) and Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore (WNO). She recently reprised her role of Katisha in English National Opera's much acclaimed production of The Mikado at the London Coliseum.

In 2007, she sang the role of Madame de Croissy in Dialogues of the Carmelites at the Lyric Opera of Chicago - the premiere production of the work at that house. She also appeared at Covent Garden as the Marquise de Berkenfeld in La fille du régiment and will repeat the role with the Metropolitan Opera.