OPERA MAGAZINE
Lively, charming performances by Sylvie Gallant and Katie Slater.
Hugo Shirley
THE TELEGRAPH
I particularly liked Sylvie Gallant’s Irina and Peter Brathwaite’s Emanuel.
Rupert Christiansen
TIMEOUT LONDON
The result is a zany but fun romantic comedy, with a poignant message about how we treat migrant workers...with a cast of fine singers (Sylvie Gallant’s clear bright soprano stands out).
Jonathan Lennie
NEWSTATESMAN
Gallant's voice lends her despairing queen a youthfulness but also a lightness that Purcell’s writing happily accommodates.
Alexandra Coghlan
THE OBSERVER
The singing, led by Sylvie Gallant was uniformly good...all was done with conviction and seriousness.
Fiona Maddocks
OPERA NOW
...the core of Dido is strong...the peripheries of the drama is heartening, and the whole thing was performed with a big, positive zing.
Robert Thicknesse
TIMEOUT LONDON
There is fine singing all round. As Gretel, soprano Sylvie Gallant is believable as the naughty child; so, too, mezzo Katie Slater as her mischievous brother Hansel. There is some delightful singing from them both, particularly the ‘Evening Prayer’ duet.
Jonathan Lennie
A YOUNGER THEATRE
...Sylvie Gallant plays [Dido] with tenderness and charm, and her voice is captivating.
Ed Theakston
THE LONDONIST
One of the evening’s other surprises was the consistently high quality of the singing. Sylvie Gallant’s light soprano voice and Katie Slater made a convincingly boyish Hansel despite a fine mezzo-soprano voice.
Stephen Wilmot
French-Canadian born soprano, Sylvie now lives in London. After a degree in music, Sylvie went on to study opera at McGill University in Montréal and on the English National Opera performance programme.
Recent opera highlights include: Gretel in Hänsel & Gretel (‘Lively, charming performance’ by Sylvie Gallant - Opera Magazine), Dido in Dido and Aeneas (‘Gallant’s voice lends her despairing queen a youthfulness but also a lightness that Purcell’s writing happily accommodates’ - New Statesman), Semele in Händel's Semele, Eurydice and Diana in Offenbach's Orfée aux Enfers, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Gilda in Rigoletto, Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. She has also performed L'enfant in L'enfant et las sortilèges and recently, Noémie (stepsister) in Massenet’s Cendrillon in France, conducted by Paul McGrath, and Junon in Orphée aux enfers and Ilia in Idomeneo at Opera de Baugé and for Midsummer Opera.
New opera: Mrs Purcell in Purcell: His Ground by David Knotts (Royal Opera House, Clore Studio), soprano in an installation at the Hayward Gallery and the protagonist Irina in the award-winning Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka (I particularly liked Sylvie Gallant’s Irina’ Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph). Recently, Sylvie worked on a new opera Pussy Riot - The Opera and in an Open Space residency in Aldeburgh with Hanbury & Groves.
Her classical singing career has since flourished alongside a lifelong love of physical theatre, clowning, theatre and modern dance. As well as workshops with Complicité, Philippe Gaulier, Clod Ensemble and contemporary dance classes at the Laban Centre and The Place, Sylvie has been a member of Experience Vocal Dance Company and has worked with Emma Rice and Wise Children.
As an actor, roles include: Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest; the eponymous role in The Woman in Black (West End); physical theatre production of The Wind in the Willows; an all-female Ubu Roi (Courtyard Theatre) and the title role in the UK Premiere of the farce Run for Your Man by Ray Cooney. Sylvie has also been cast in several film and TV roles and was the lead singer in Antony & Cleopatra and Macbeth (Royal Shakespeare Company; Barbican).
In oratorio, as a soloist, Sylvie performed staged versions of The Messiah and Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. Soloist for Orff's Carmina Burana in Amsterdam, Fauré’s Requiem and Bach's St Matthew Passion, and as the soloist in Mendelssohn's Psalm 42, Dvorak's Mass in D in central Paris and as the soloist in Vaughan Williams’s beautiful floaty Serenade to Music.
A keen recitalist, Sylvie has a vast repertoire of songs, mélodies and lieder and performed a staged version of Schumann’s Liederkreis op.39. She has also recorded newly written songs by Edward Nesbit, on Yeats’ poetry.
Sylvie also often performs regularly for events, galas and ceremonies and has sung for rugby events, fundraisers, at Pinewood studios and for Princess Anne and Prince Michael of Kent. She has also toured all over Germany with over 100 shows in arenas and theatres, signing autographs and singing the very famous Montserrat Caballe songs in an homage to Freddie Mercury.
Conductors Sylvie has worked with include Paul McGrath, Alex Ingram, Matthew Halls, Nicoletta Conti, Stephen Barlow, Peter Selwyn, Martin Handley, Nicholas Cleobury and Stephen Higgins. Directors Sylvie has worked with include Stuart Barker, Mitchell Moreno, Mary King, Jonathan Cocker, Peter Mulloy, Leon Berger, Michael McCaffery, Lynn Binstock, Vincent van den Elshout and Emma RIce.