Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt (born 20 June 1979) is an operatic soprano. Born in Bristol, England, she has lived in Australia since 1991 and is the daughter of a tenor. She began by studying the trumpet for ten years before concentrating her studies on singing.

In 2003 she won the Australian Singing Competition, which brought her to Europe, and she was subsequently invited by Gianluigi Gelmetti to continue her studies at the Rome Opera, and while in Rome, she also studied under Renata Scotto at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, finally moving to Milan in 2006 to complete her studies with Lella Cuberli. Since that time she has begun to make a career for herself in many of the world's great opera houses.

During the early years of her career, in typical fashion, she sang in many smaller venues, examples being her Lucia in several Italian European houses, including those in Pavia and Cremona (October 2007), Zurich in late 2008, Florence in early 2009, and again in Geneva in March 2010. Other roles taken up during these years included Desdemona in July 2008, Gilda in Como one year later along with others in Rome in July/August 2010. Her Amina in La sonnambula appeared in Como, St. Gallen, Pavia, and Cremona in October/November 2010, followed by a run of Elviras in I puritani in four smaller Italian houses in October 2010/11.

Pratt has also performed in international opera theatres and festivals including La Scala where she first sang in Donizetti's Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali in 2011. Performances elsewhere have included those at the Teatro San Carlo (Lucia in 2011), the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Teatro La Fenice (with a Lucia in May/June 2011 and some performances as Elvira in May 2012), as well as the Vienna State Opera and Opernhaus Zürich. Other European venues include the Deutsche Oper Berlin and The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, (as the Queen of the Night) in February 2011 under Colin Davis.