Remembering Felicity Lott (1947–2026) 

Sunday 17 May 2026

The purity and warmth of Dame Felicity Lott’s soprano voice ideally matched the music of Mozart and Strauss, which she sang to great acclaim at the Royal Opera House. 

Dame Felicity, who has died aged 79, was among the finest sopranos of her time, internationally celebrated for the poise and attentiveness of her artistry and the sheer beauty of her voice. At the Royal Opera House, she appeared frequently over some 28 years, especially in operas by Mozart and Richard Strauss.  

Lott – universally nicknamed ‘Flott’ – was born in Cheltenham on 8 May 1947 and as a child studied piano and violin besides singing. Her degree at Royal Holloway College, London University, was in French and Latin; her linguistic abilities, superb diction and sensitivity to text later paid ample dividends. After graduating, she entered London’s Royal Academy of Music, where she won the Principal’s Prize. 

After singing Pamina in The Magic Flute in 1975 with English National Opera she made her Covent Garden debut in Hans Werner Henze’s opera We Come to the River. Through the 1980s she performed at ENO as Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, Blanche in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites and in several operas by Britten. She worked at the Royal Opera House with conductors including Bernard Haitink, Charles Mackerras and Andrew Davis. Her later roles there included the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro (1995), Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (1996) and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, initially in 1987 with her frequent colleague Ann Murray as Octavian, and thereafter in 1995 and 2004. 

In 1977 she sang at Glyndebourne, beginning a lengthy relationship with the Sussex opera house. She and her husband, the actor Gabriel Woolf, settled nearby in the South Downs. 

Lott began working with the pianist Graham Johnson while a student and was a founding member of his groundbreaking ensemble The Songmakers’ Almanac. Her discography encompassed operatic roles, art song, choral worksand operetta – the latter of which she adored. She starred in Lehár’s The Merry Widow and Offenbach’s La belle Hélène, plus as Rosalinde in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus 

Her involvement with French music won her the French Legion of Honour; in Britain she was made a DBE in 1996 and awarded the Wigmore Medal of the eponymous hall in 2010, having performed Lieder there across 35 years. Showered with honorary doctorates, she also became Patron of the British Voice Association and Vice-President of both British Youth Opera and The Bach Choir. Her final performance at the Royal Opera House was as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier on 30 April 2004. 


'Flott was a great artist, the best of colleagues and a good friend, as she was to so very many. Hers was a life truly well lived, and I will treasure her memory with love and respect.'

– Alex Beard, Chief Executive of the Royal Ballet and Opera

'Felicity was unique: an artist whose authenticity and self-deprecation were as one with her extraordinary vocal talent and brilliantly understated stage presence. Above all, her limitless generosity and warmth, especially to younger artists meant she made a difference to more lives than she knew. We will all miss her.'

– Oliver Mears, Director of The Royal Opera

'Felicity was the most gracious and sublime sopranos we have seen in her generation, and a generous and unpretentious colleague like very few. Her memory will live on in all who have seen her and worked with her.'

– Peter Katona, Director of Casting at The Royal Opera