thebelfastensemble

REBECCA CAINE, IRIS ROBINSON

Rebecca Caine was born in Canada. She very briefly attended the Guildhall School of Music.

She has sung a wide range of operatic roles including Pamina, Despina, Susanna, Musetta, Ophelié, Violetta,  Julietta, Marguerite, Hanna Glawari, Adina, Anna 1 for English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Antwerp, Nice, Prague, Chicago Opera Theatre, Scottish Opera, Opera North, Spoleto, Ravenna, Vlaamse, New Zealand Opera, Glimmerglass, Opera Holland Park and the Canadian Opera Company where she made her North American operatic debut in the title role of Lulu and also winning the Dora Award for the title role of The Cunning Little Vixen. Miss Caine created the role of Cosette in Les Miserables at the RSC and in the West End where her other roles include Laurey in Oklahoma! and Christine in The Phantom Of The Opera, a role she also sang at the Canadian premiere. Other notable musical theatre includes Eliza/ National Tour of My Fair Lady, Mother Abbess/ National Tour of The Sound of Music, Dahl in Dave Malloy’s Preludes at Southwark Playhouse, Margaret in The Light in Piazza for Central City Opera,  she created the roles of Madame Colbert/Lady Dant in Flowers For Mrs  Harris at The Crucible and Magda in Conor Mitchell’s Propaganda at the Lyric Belfast.

Plays include Living On Love/ Asolo Rep and Harold and Maude/ Charing Cross Theatre. Radio includes, Candide, One Touch Of Venus, The Telephone, Trouble in Tahiti, concerts of Bernstein, Porter and Kern for BBC Radio 3. Miss Caine has taken her one woman show to every Canadian province and territory except Nunavut and the Yukon.

MATTHEW CAVAN, DUP SOLOIST

Matthew Cavan is a Belfast-based actor, singer and drag performer.  After creating his fabulous Alter Ego, Miss Cherrie Ontop, Matthew decided it was time to work on his acting career.  Within the past 15 years, Matthew has worked with many theatre companies including: QDOS (Cinderella, Mother Goose, Grand Opera House), TheatreOfPluck (Glory, Bison, Belfast and London), NI Opera (Mrs Peechum in The Threepenny Opera, Pirelli in Sweeney Todd, Cacatois in Tulipatan and Paul in Kiss Me Kate), Fishamble (Jay in Warpaint), the Lyric Theatre (where he created the role of Gerhart in The Young Pornographer's Wife) and GBL (Amnesia in Cinder on Tinder and Jafar Dunbar in Aladdin: The Adult Panto). Most recently Matthew's life story was crafted into a new musical, Mirrorball with Replay Theatre company as part of the Belfast Children's Festival.

Matthew has been a core member of The Belfast Ensemble for 7 years, he has worked on: The Hapsburg Tragedies, The Fall of the House of Usher, 10 Plagues, Barrack Room Ballads, The Doppler Effect, Lunaria, Abomination - A DUP Opera, The Musician: A Horror Opera for Children, The Pirates of Penzance, Septet: For Four and Propaganda: A New Musical. Matthew is delighted to return to Abomination - A DUP Opera; ‘I think this is a vital piece of Art for our time, and it's a massive honour to be able to perform the work of Conor Mitchell on a world renowned stage.’ 

CHRISTOPHER CULL, DUP SOLOIST

An alumnus of the National Opera Studio London, Guildhall School of Music, The Royal Irish Academy of Music, and Queen’s University Belfast, Christopher’s Roles include Marcello La bohème (Opera Holland Park); Masetto Don Giovanni (NI Opera); Tarquinius The Rape of Lucretia (GSMD); Don Carissimo La Dirindina (NI Opera); Zaretsky Eugene Onegin (Buxton Opera);  Pan Daphnis et Chloé (NI Opera); Donner Das Rheingold (Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra); Lelio Le donne curiose (GSMD); Valentin Faust (Clonter Opera); Bank Account Billy The Rise and the Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Opera Theatre Company); Le Geôlier / Javelinot Dialogues des Carmélites (Grange Park Opera); Lane/Merriman The Importance of Being Earnest (NI Opera /Wide Open Opera); Assassin/Apparition Macbeth (NI Opera). Previous concert engagements include Johannes-Passion (RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra), Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast (Barbican), Elijah (Truro Cathedral), Monteverdi Vespers 1610 (Sheffield Oratorio Chorus), Ein deutsches Requiem (The Angmering Chorale), Messiah (Knock Basilica). Christopher is an Arts Council of Northern Ireland Young Musicians’ Platform Winner, was a finalist in the Chilcott Award, and a former Young Artist with Opera Theatre Company. Christopher’s studies have been generously supported by The Girdlers’ Company, The Countess of Munster Musical Trust, The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and The Arts Council of Ireland. Future engagements include Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Philomusica Aberystwyth.

JOHN PORTER, DUP SOLOIST

Hailing from Donegal, Ireland, John is a graduate of Royal Academy Opera and University of Ulster; and an alumnus of the Georg Solti Accademia and Les Azuriales.  He is a former Young Artist for Garsington Opera and Northern Ireland Opera and was a finalist at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala competition in Milan.  In 2022 he was announced as one of the recipients of the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival Bursary Awards.  In recent seasons John has performed the roles of Ferrando in Così fan tutte with Orchestre Mozart Genève in Switzerland; Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, and Aeglamour in the world premiere of Ina Boyle’s Maudlin of Paplewick for Blackwater Valley Opera Festival; “Voice of the DUP” in Abomination – A DUP Opera at the Abbey Theatre Dublin and the Lyric Theatre Belfast with The Belfast Ensemble; and Jupiter in Handel’s Semele in France.  On the concert platform, he has been Tenor soloist in the premiere of MASS by composer Conor Mitchell in Belfast; in Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge at the Teatro Auditorio de Cuenca, Spain under the baton of Barry Douglas; in Puccini’s Messa di Gloria and Berlioz’s Te Deum at Chichester Cathedral directed by Jonathan Willcocks; and in Handel’s Messiah with Salon Opera; and performed recitals for Blackwater Valley Opera Festival and for the Solti Accademia in Venice. Highlights this season include soloist with Le Foyer des Artistes, Tenor Soloist in Abomination - A DUP Opera with the Belfast Ensemble at the Southbank Centre London, Macduff in Macbeth with Blackwater Valley Opera Festival and role and house debut Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress at Theater Orchester Biel Solothurn in Switzerland.

From 2016 – 2018 John was an integral part of the Marketing Department at Wigmore Hall, London and in 2021 worked on projects for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.  He continues to work on freelance Arts administration and marketing projects in his spare time. John is grateful for the support he has received in his career thus far including that of The Countess of Munster Musical Trust, The Kathleen Trust, The Richard Lewis Jean Shanks Trust, The Nicholas Berwin Charitable Trust, Help Musicians UK, and The International Opera Awards Foundation.

SARAH RICHMOND, DUP SOLOIST

Winner of the 2021 Toronto Mozart Vocal Competition, Carrickfergus mezzo soprano Sarah Richmond is known for her emotional engagement, with Opera Magazine remarking “Her voice was bright and clear, her acting wholly convincing”. Operatic highlights include Willie Guglielmo Ratcliff, Yelena Popova The Bear, Lucrece What Happened to Lucrece, Véronique Le docteur Miracle, (Wexford Festival Opera), Zweite Dame Die Zauberflöte, Conscience Rupture (Irish National Opera), The Boy The Musician (The Belfast Ensemble), La Zia Principessa Suor Angelica (Random Opera), Suzuki Madama Butterfly(Lyric Opera) and Dritte Dame Die Zauberflöte (Pavilion Opera). Recital appearances incorporate Oxford Lieder Festival, UK Strauss Society, and an upcoming recital with Dearbhla Collins at the National Concert Hall. Prominent conductors of solo engagements include Vasily Petrenko with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Gergely Madaras and Sir Mark Elder. Extensive UK and Ireland concert performances include Elgar Sea Pictures, Brahms Alto Rhapsody and Respighi’s Il Tramonto with The Ulster Orchestra. International concert credits include Monte Carlo and Soriano nel Cimino.

CHRISTOPHER THOMAS, ANGEL

Christopher Thomas is a dancer, choreographer, actor and creative who started performing in London’s West End from a young age in productions under the directorship of Cameron Mackintosh, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Bill Kenwright (Jeremy Potts - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 2005, Poor Baby - Whistle Down The Wind 2006, Michael Banks - Marry Poppins 2006-2007). He then trained vocationally at The Royal Ballet School and furthered his studies at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, graduating with a First Class BA (Hons) in 2017.

During that time, Christopher performed extensively with Rambert Dance Company in works by Mark Baldwin, Itzik Galili, and worked closely with Didy Veldman and Mark Bruce in his final year. Since graduating, Christopher has been involved with multiple film and performance projects, including establishing his own choreographic work and, more recently joining processes as a creative collaborator. Christopher’s dance film and performance work includes projects with Nowness, VENI VIDI (Limbo, 2018, since the released screenings incl. Lumière Prize at Cinédanse Ottawa (2019), San Francisco Dance Film Festival (2019), Sthlm DansFilm Festival (2019), and Charlotte Edmonds (Ten Million Tonnes, 2019), Arielle Smith, Travis Knight, Gemma Payne Productions, Carolyn Bolton, Theo Adams Company, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, Arlene Phillips, James Cousins Company, Karen Rumi. His most notable performance highlights are working with Mark Bruce Company on Macbeth (2018), Return to Heaven (2020), and Phantoms (2022). Christopher is excited to return to the company for a new production in 2024. He also works with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, most recently on the company’s version of Sleeping Beauty (2022-23) and has previously worked on Romeo and Juliet (2019), The Midnight Bell (2021) and The Car Man (2022, Royal Albert Hall).

Christopher's choreographic awards include Young Choreographer of the Year 2017 and summer of 2018, he joined the Cohan Collective as a creative collaborator. Christopher's biggest choreographic achievement to date was becoming one of Sadler’s Wells Young Associate Artists, where Christopher created works for both stages in the theatre; Blood’s Thicker Than Water (Lilian Baylis Studio Theatre, 2017), The Three Visions (Lilian Baylis Studio Theatre 2018) and To the Ocean Floor (Main house, 2019). He continues working with long-term collaborator and composer Jordan Hunt on multiple live and digital works, having recently completed a period of research and development for a new live production. In addition to the above Sadler’s Wells pieces, their collaborations include work for Resolution19, To the Ocean Floor digital solo series (2021-) created during the pandemic—twelve solos for each musical movement of live work. Christopher’s other choreographic work includes ROOMTOROOM collaboration with Matthew Hawkins (2021) and he was co-director of Retrospect Dance Theatre (2017-2019), whose work In Light of Those You Love was performed both nationally and internationally (Choreography3: Hannover International Choreographic Competition, Hannover 2017; DanceProms, The Royal Albert Hall 2017; Pitch2017, The Point, Eastleigh 2017;  Flux5 International Dance Festival, Rotterdamse Schcouwbreg, Rotterdam 2017; BlackBox International Festival for Theatre and Dance, Bulgaria 2018; Scratch2018, Norden Farm creative Centre for the Arts, 2018; Resolution2018, The Place Theatre, London 2018) including a full-length version of the work performed at The Asylum (2017) from which the company had the opportunity to produce a cinematic feature film version of the work screened at Whirled Cinema London (2018).