Yvonne Kenny was born in Sydney and made her operatic début in London in 1975 as Donizetti’s Rosmonda d’Inghilterra. After winning the Kathleen Ferrier Competition she joined the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, where her rôles have included Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Ilia in Idomeneo, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Liù in Turandot, Aspasia in Mitridate and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. She has won international renown in the great Handel rôles, notably Semele and Alcina at Covent Garden and La Fenice, Venice, Romilda in Xerxes for English National Opera, in London and on tour to the USSR, and with the Bavarian State Opera, Alcina with Nicholas McGegan at the Göttingen Handel Festival and both Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare and Armida in Rinaldo in Sydney. She has sung at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Milan, the Berlin Staatsoper, Paris Opéra, Hamburg, Zurich and Glyndebourne, and taken leading rôles in opera houses throughout Europe and North America. Yvonne Kenny appears regularly in concert in Europe, Australia and North America, and has appeared at the Edinburgh, Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence Festivals, in Carnegie Hall and as a regular guest at the BBC Promenade concerts. She has a significant list of recordings to her credit. She was made a member of the Order of Australia for Services to Music in 1989 and in 1999 was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music by the University of Sydney.