Biography

British Mezzo-Soprano Louisa Stuart-Smith is a Samling Artist, an Edinburgh International Festival Rising Star of Voice (2026), a Garsington Opera Alvarez Emerging Artist (2025) and a Josephine Baker Trust Artist. This season, she made her Royal Ballet and Opera debut singing in Handel’s Giustino in the Linbury Theatre; she covered three roles in Tales of Love and Loss at the Royal Ballet and Opera (Olga in Four Sisters, Maid in Making Arrangements and Chorus in The Departure); and she sang the role of Dorabella in Longhope Opera’s Così Fan Tutte. Her recent concert work as a soloist includes oratorio performances with the London Mozart Players and Orpheus Sinfonia; Baroque recitals with the Carnegie Ensemble from the BBC Symphony Orchestra; and art song performed with James Baillieu and Louise Alder at the Edinburgh International Festival. Upcoming, she will sing as a Finalist in the Neue Stimmen International Singing Competition in Germany and as a Semi-Finalist in the Cesti Baroque Singing Competition at the Innsbruck Festwochen der Alten Musik.

Louisa studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for the MPerf and Artist Diploma in Vocal Performance under the tutelage of Professor Yvonne Kenny. Louisa is grateful to have been a Sidney Perry Foundation Scholar, a Guildhall School Trust Scholar and generously supported by the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors.

Competition successes include First Prize in the Chris Treglown Foundation Awards (2025); a runner-up prize (Encouragement Award) in the Maryland District of the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition (2024); winner of the Audience Prize in the Chartered Surveyors’ Vocal Competition (2024); Runner-Up in the Final of the London Bach Society’s Bach Singers Prize Competition (2024) and Semi-Finalist in both the VIII Concurs Internacional de Cant Josep Palet in Barcelona and the Royal Overseas League Competition.

Louisa has performed as the Mezzo-Soprano Soloist in numerous oratorios, including, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Handel’s Messiah, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Haydn’s Paukenmesse and Dhondy’s The Conference of the Birds. She also regularly performs song recitals and recently joined Roderick Williams in concert as a soloist in his 22 Mansfield Street Salon concert. In 2024 Louisa covered the role of Dorabella in Teatro Lorenzo Da Ponte’s production of Cosí Fan Tutte in Vittorio Veneto, Italy. In GSMD Opera Scenes, Louisa has sung Bianca in The Rape of Lucretia, Dorabella in Cosí Fan Tutte, Annio in La Clemenza di Tito, Irene in Tamerlano, Mab in La Jolie Fille de Perth and Nunzia in La Liberazione di Ruggiero.

Louisa is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, where she held a choral scholarship and performed numerous full operatic roles, including the title roles in Serse (2022), Rinaldo (2021) and Giulio Cesare in Egitto (2019). She also sang the roles of Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro (2021), L’Architecture in Les Arts Florissants (2019) and La Damigella in La Liberazione di Ruggiero (2020). With Southgate Youth Opera, she performed as Papagena in The Magic Flute (2016).

Other operetta and acting roles have included Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore (Minack Theatre, 2021), Tessa in The Gondoliers (2022), Peep-Bo in The Mikado (2019), Joan in Saint Joan (ADC Theatre 2019), Mother in Machinal (2019), and Voltore in Volpone (2019), as well as performing regularly in comedy sketch shows with the Cambridge Footlights. Musical theatre roles include Sally Bowles in Cabaret (2018), Ado Annie in Oklahoma! (2017) and Eponine in Les Miserables (2015).

Louisa is enthusiastic about performing contemporary music and, this season, she covered three roles in the Royal Ballet and Opera’s production of Tales of Love and Loss, which included contemporary chamber operas by Elena Langer, Elizabeth Maconchy and Charlotte Bray. She sang the role of the Crow in Danyal Dhondy’s contemporary oratorio, The Conference of the Birds, at Leighton House (2026) with Cantata Dramatica. She also performed a selection of works by Cheryl Frances-Hoad at Milton Court Concert Hall, following collaboration with the composer and she covered the solo Mezzo-Soprano for the world premiere of Ben Pease-Barton’s Holme in the Barbican Concert Hall. In 2021, Louisa premiered American composer Mateo Lincoln’s song cycle, The World is Too Much With Us.

As a child, Louisa performed as the ‘Choir Boy soloist’ in Marin Alsop’s production of Bernstein’s Mass (2010, Royal Festival Hall). She sang in the Children’s Chorus in Carmen (2015, ENO), Der Rosenkavalier (2012, ENO), Turandot (2009, ENO), Hansel und Gretel (2009, Opera Holland Park) and La Bohème (2008, ENO).

In addition to her career as an opera singer, Louisa holds BA and MPhil degrees in History of Art from the University of Cambridge, and is a keen runner and a linguist.