THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Ann-Louise Straker

Ann-Louise Straker (1981-82)

After studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Ann-Louise Straker began her performing career with "Gilbert & Sullivan for All." She joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a soprano chorister in September 1981 for the Company's last, abbreviated, season. She was with the D'Oyly Carte until its last night on February 27, 1982.

Following the demise of the D'Oyly Carte she was a co-founder of "G&S Unlimited," a group of former D'Oyly Carte artists who presented Gilbert & Sullivan in concert venues. She has since appeared in opera, operetta, and oratorio at many theatres and halls throughout the United Kingdom. She has toured with "Golden Operetta," and as Sombra in Monkton's The Arcadians. In 1997 she was sent by the Royal Opera House to New York's Metropolitan Opera House where she completed a three-year directing course to bring opera to children.

Since 1997 she has been the principal soprano with Grim's Dyke Opera Company, performing at Gilbert's former home, now a hotel, in Harrow Weald, Middlesex. During the 2002 season she appeared as Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Phyllis in Iolanthe, Yum-Yum in The Mikado, and Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen of the Guard. She may be heard in excerpts from four of the operas on the Grim's Dyke Opera Live 2-CD set recorded in April 2000.

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