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. She made her Royal Ballet and Opera debut this Autumn singing in Handel’s Giustino in the Linbury Theatre and, most recently, 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). Her recent concert work as a soloist includes performances with the London Mozart Players, Orpheus Sinfonia and the Carnegie Ensemble from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming, Louisa will sing the role of Dorabella in Longhope Opera’s Così Fan Tutte and she will sing at the Edinburgh International Festival as a Rising Star of Voice in concerts at Usher Hall and Queen’s Hall.

Louisa is currently studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for the Artist Diploma in Vocal Performance under the tutelage of Professor Yvonne Kenny. Louisa is grateful to be a Sidney Perry Foundation Scholar and to be generously supported by the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors. She graduated from the MPerf in Vocal Performance at GSMD with Distinction, during which she held a Guildhall School Trust Scholarship.

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 three 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 Boheme (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.