Lorna Haywood

Lorna Haywood was born in Birmingham in July 1939 and trained at the Royal Manchester College of Music. She made her early career in the United States after winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1965 — appearing with the company that year as the Countess in *Le nozze di Figaro* — and worked across the American operatic circuit through the late 1960s and 1970s before her return to Britain.

She was a dramatic soprano whose principal repertoire was the heavier Italian and Wagner roles. Her central parts were Aida, Tosca, Turandot, Mimì in *La bohème*, the title role in *Madama Butterfly*, Senta in *Der fliegende Holländer*, Marina in *Boris Godunov*, and the major Strauss and Puccini soprano roles. She sang at the New York City Opera, Covent Garden, the Welsh National Opera, the Houston Grand Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She also worked as a recitalist with substantial activity in the British contemporary repertoire.

Haywood taught at the New England Conservatory of Music from 1990 and at Indiana University in her later career. She died in Indianapolis in October 2019. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of her work in the dramatic Italian operatic repertoire.