Patricia Kern
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Patricia Kern, Mezzo-Soprano and Voice Teacher
(b Swansea, 4 July 1927). Welsh mezzo-soprano. From 1949 to 1952 she studied with Parry Jones at the Guildhall School, London. She began her career with Opera for All (1952–5). In 1959 she joined Sadler’s Wells, making her début in Rusalka; for ten seasons she was a valued and busy member of the company, her most notable achievement being her interpretations, at once mischievous and sensitive, of Cenerentola, Rosina, Isolier (Le comte Ory) and Isabella (L’italiana in Algeri). Her Iolanthe, Hänsel, Cherubino, Pippo (in Rossini’s La gazza ladra), Messenger (in Monteverdi’s Orfeo) and Josephine (in the première of Malcolm Williamson’s The Violins of St Jacques, 1966) were also much admired. She made her Covent Garden début in 1967 as Zerlina. Her American début was at Washington, DC, in 1969 and in 1987 she sang Marcellina in Chicago. Kern possessed a smooth, creamy voice, imaginative of phrase and easily capable of negotiating Rossinian fioritura – her account of Cenerentola’s final rondo was a tour de force. Her stage personality was engaging and sympathetic. (Alan Blyth: "Patricia Kern", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press 2007) Kern can also be heard on several Opera recordings.
Miss. Kern teaches Voice at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, where she has guided the vocal studies of many of today's great Opera Singers, as well as several who are on the rise. A partial list includes: Russell Braun, Baritone; Brett Polegato, Baritone; Kimberly Barber, Mezzo-soprano; Jean Stilwell, Mezzo-Soprano; Alain Coulombe, bass; Alexander Dobson, Baritone; Benoît Boutet, Tenor.
