Janis Kelly

Janis Kelly (born 30 December 1954) is a Scottish operatic soprano and voice teacher. Her career has covered a wide range of opera from baroque to contemporary work and she has made some audio and video recordings of key roles. She is Professor and Chair of Vocal Performance at the Royal College of Music in London.

Early life Kelly was born in Glasgow, Scotland, second of eight children in a large family in Inverness where singing was part of growing up, songs from the musicals and making up their own show, sowing the seed for working in the theatre. She studied under Elisabeth Grümmer in Paris and Frankfurt from 1980 to 1983 and continued with other teachers in London. Venus in Orpheus in the Underworld, Beketaten in the UK premiere of Philip Glass's Ahknaten and the Dew Fairy and Gretel in Hansel and Gretel. Having appeared as Pat Nixon in the first UK staging of John Adams' Nixon in China in June 2000 at ENO,

Once settled in her career, "a casting director of one of the leading British companies", asked by her agent why she was not offered roles replied that she was "too versatile"; in a 2001 interview she stated that she "liked to sing lots of styles and I've gained from every style I've performed in". Rose Maurrant in Street Scene was a landmark role; firstly a charity show at the Cambridge Theatre conducted by John Owen Edwards with Alec McCowen, Elaine Page and Paul Harrhy as Sam Kaplan, then in the Pountney Scottish Opera production when it transferred to the London Coliseum. also filmed in the theatre and issued on blu-ray and DVD. Returning to Semele in 1999 "the excellent Janis Kelly is a scene-stealing Iris" according to Edward Seckerson reviewing the ENO production in The Independent, prior to its live broadcast on BBC2 on 15 May 1999. Recordings by Kelly including a performance of the aria Senza Mamma from Puccini's Suor Angelica heard on the British ITV television series Inspector Morse; she is credited on three of the related CDs. She sang Anne Egerman on the 1990 recording of A Little Night Music, conducted by John Owen Edwards, and issued on Jay records.

She appeared as Constance in The Sorcerer and Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance in the Brent Walker Videos series of 1982-83, and, in addition to the Barber of Seville mentioned above, Hazel George in the Teatro Real Madrid premiere production of The Perfect American by Glass, (also filmed). Kelly was credited as Vocal Coach for the 2025 film The Choral. On radio she played Jane Harding in the BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie's Giant's Bread.