AvaDodd

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  • Soprano

About Ava

Irish soprano Ava Dodd studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. She won the Yves Paternot Award at the Verbier Festival in 2023. She is a Harewood Artist at the English National Opera and an Associate Artist of The Mozartists.

Highlights in her 2024/25 season include returns to the Wexford Festival as Tilburina in Stanford's The Critic, to the English National Opera as Adina The Elixir of Love and Barbarina The Marriage of Figaro and to Oper Frankfurt as Madeleine, Madame de Latour in Adolphe Adam's Le postillon de Lonjumeau.

Recent engagements have included include Second Niece Peter Grimes and Rosina The Barber of Seville for the English National Opera, Fenimore in Kurt Weill's Der Silbersee at the Opéra national de Lorraine and Sonia in Camille Erlanger’s L’Aube rouge at the Wexford Festival.

A member of the ensemble of the Stadttheater Klagenfurt during the 2022/23 season, she sang Waldvögel Siegfried, Oscar Un ballo in maschera, Mirjam in the world premiere of Bernard Land's opera HIOB, and the soprano solos in Carmina Burana.

Ava is based in Dublin

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Contact

Keiron Cooke

Keiron Cooke

Associate Director
Charlotte Bateman

Charlotte Bateman

Assistant Artist Manager

Representation

Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

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Season Highlights

Oct 2024 - Nov 2024
Wexford Festival
The Critic (Tilburina) Ciarán Crangle (conductor)
Dec 2024 - Dec 2024
English National Opera
The Elixir of Love (Adina) Teresa Riveiro Böhm (conductor)
Jan 2025
Bournemouth
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra New Year Strauss Gala Concert, Tom Fetherstonhaugh (Conductor)
Feb 2025 - Feb 2025
English National Opera
The Marriage of Figaro (Barbarina) Ainārs Rubiķis (conductor)
Mar 2025
Cadogan hall
The Mozartists La finta giardiniera (Sandrina)
Apr 2025 - Apr 2025
Frankfurt Opera
Postillon de Lonjumeau (Madeleine / Madame de Latour) Takeshi Moriuchi (conductor)

Video

Photos

Selected Repertoire

Mahler

Symphony No.4

News

Press

  • The Marriage of Figaro

    English National Opera
    Feb 2025

    • Ava Dodd’s stirringly delivered Barbarina marks the Irish soprano as one to watch.

    • Ava Dodd as young Barbarina bringing a frisson of lost innocence to her dusky F minor melancholy of losing a pin (and what else?) in the twilight...

    • Ava Dodd as Barbarina, all micro-mini and Instaface

    • Ava Dodd brings a youthful infectiousness to the role of Barbarina as well as poignancy for her minor-key aria at the start of Act 4.

    • In her all-too brief appearance, Ava Dodd showed a winning stage presence and pearly soprano as Barbarina, one to watch.

    • Ava Dodd as Barbarina sang her aria elegantly (and in this production it is clear what she has really lost!) and made her other contributions count.

  • New Year's Viennese Gala, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

    Poole
    Jan 2025

    • Franz Lehar’s Gold and Silver Waltz also featured with the extraordinary Irish soprano Ava Dodd (who also performed the composer’s Vilja-lied from the Merry Widow and Adele’s Laughing Song from Fledermaus). The young Dublin born soloist added a whole other dimension to a sparkling afternoon with her powerful, crystal, golden voice, bold, amusing and entertaining stage presence. It was a sheer delight to see and hear her perform, her beautiful voice filling and captivating the auditorium.

  • The Critic

    Wexford Festival
    Oct 2024 - Nov 2024

    • Die Sängerinnen und Sänger changieren gekonnt zwischen ihrer Rolle als Sänger bzw. Sängerin und der Rolle im gespielten Stück. Ava Dodd punktet mit glockenklarem höhensicherem Sopran und zeigt sich, wenn sie von Puff kritisiert wird, als Operndiva sehr zickig.

    • Ava Dodd as Tilburina was the consummate actress, managing to successfully portray boredom with having to repeat her lines and yet somehow also singing with grace and elegance.

    • The improbable tale of a Governor’s daughter Tiburina, a superb Ava Dodd, and her doomed love for Spaniard Don Ferolo Wiskerandos, an equally terrific Dane Suarez, portraying a passion so…passionate it’s worth dying twice for. Throw in the historical Sir Walter Raleigh (Ben McAteer) and Sir Christopher Hatton (Oliver Johnston), the Governor (Rory Dunne), a love lorn beefeater (Gyula Nagy doubling up as Earl of Leicester) and some amorous nieces (Hannah O’Brien and Carolyn Holt) and all the ingredients are set in play for the grandest of grand operas, minus the ballet.

    • C’est d’ailleurs sans doute Ava Dodd, son interprète, qui se voit attribuer la partie la plus conséquente avec une enchaînement de soliloques dont la soprano irlandaise ne fait qu’une bouchée. Entendue ce printemps dans le Lac d’argent de Kurt Weill à l’opera National de Lorraine, débutant cet hiver en Adina à l’ English National Opera de Londres, elle bénéficie d’un timbre ductile, tout en agilité. Son talent de comédienne s’avère patent dans l’hilarante scène de folie parodique comme dans la la pathétique scène d’amour où Dane Suarez lui donne la réplique avec panache et de belles nuances en dépit d’un soutien intermittent.

    • Stanford reserves his best vocal writing for Tilburina, which soprano Ava Dodd exploits to the full, while the choruses swell with typical Stanford grandeur.

    • Ava Dodd performed her initial pastoral aria with charm and elegance while imbuing the vocal line with a sumptuous tone. She switched seamlessly between irritation with Puff’s interruptions and the inflated love music of the opera.

    • The singers, meanwhile, never break character, though with voices of the calibre of Ben McAteer (Sir Walter Raleigh) and Ava Dodd (the geographically named heroine Tilburina) you didn’t really need much realism.

  • The Barber of Seville (Rosina)

    English National Opera
    Feb 2024

    • Ava Dodd [...] made a huge impression. If initially her upper register felt a touch hard, that evened out as the evening progressed; more importantly, she has all the agility Rosina requires, delivering a standout ‘Una voce poco fa’ in the first act. Even better, her soprano voice extends down to the lower reaches perfectly (Rosina can also be sung by a mezzo-soprano, but Dodd seems to be the best of both words). I look forward very much to encountering Ava Dodd onstage again.

  • Peter Grimes (Second Niece)

    English National Opera
    Sep 2023 - Oct 2023

    • Cleo Lee-McGowan and Ava Dodd, dressed as school-girls, sang the two nieces, very well, especially the chromatically difficult ‘From the gutter’.

    • The two nieces (Cleo Lee-McGowan and Ava Dodd, perfectly cast) look like a disturbing Diane Arbus photo come to life as they synchronise their jerky motions.

    • One can only imagine how unusual the First and Second Nieces upbringing was – depicted by Alden as a pair of disturbed twins – but both are brilliantly voiced and acted by Cleo Lee-McGowan and Ava Dodd.

  • Hiob

    Stadttheater Klagenfurt
    Feb 2023 - Feb 2023

    • Alexander Kaimbacher zeigt und zeichnet Mendel Singer großartig als zerissenen Gott- und Menschensucher, Ava Dodd ist toll als ihren wilden Gefühlen freien Lauf lassende Tochter Mirjam, sehr gut auch Katerina Hebelková als Mendels Gattin und jiddische Mamme par excellence.

    • Exzellent sind auch der Chor (Einstudierung: Günter Wallner) und das übrige Ensemble mit Katerina Hebelková als seine sehr leidende Frau Deborah, Ava Dodd als kristallklar singende Tochter Mirjam, Viktor Rydén als feinsinniger Sohn Schemarjah und Benjamin Kelly Chamandy als kernig zu hörender Sohn Jonas. Steven Scheschareg zeigt in vielen Rollen seine große Wandlungsfähigkeit.

  • The Marriage

    Discography