Sarah Helsby-Hughes
Sarah is an international freelance soprano soloist and opera director, currently based in Cheshire. After graduation from Birmingham Conservatoire, she has performed all over the world in roles including Musetta/Mimi La Bohème, Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw, The Countess Le Nozze di Figaro, Queen of the Night The Magic Flute, Adina L’elisir d’Amore, Tosca, Violetta La Traviata, Josephine/Plaintiff HMS Pinafore/Trial by Jury, Donna Anna Don Giovanni, Madame Butterfly, Rosalinda Die Fledermaus, Fiordiligi Cosi Fan Tutte, Carmen, Gilda Rigoletto, Elsie Maynard Yeomen Of the Guard, Anna The Merry Widow, Mary Crawford Mansfield Park, Senta Der Fliegende Hollender. Concert work includes all the major oratorio soprano solos, with appearances in Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK. For over 10 years Sarah has been the Artistic Director of Heritage Opera, responsible for producing, translating, and directing most of the company’s output.

Nick Hardy
Nick is an international freelance singer with Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North, Wexford Festival Opera, and Buxton Festival Opera. He has appeared as a principal in opera galas in Italy, Germany and Spain and performs in many major lyric and helden roles. As an oratorio soloist he has appeared throughout the UK and France in major works by Bach, Beethoven, Dvorak, Elgar, Handel, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, Stanford, Tippett & Verdi. He has taught singing for Shrewsbury School, Birkenhead School, Liverpool College, and the Hammond Theatre School, Chester. Nick is the founder and director of Liverpool Italian Opera Co. and conducts the Wirral Community Choir. Recent appearances include War & Peace with WNO at ROH Gotterdammerung for Edinburgh International Festival, Aida with Opera North, Les Vespres Siciliennes for WNO, plus gala concerts for London Festival Opera

Serenna Wagner
An experienced, award-winning and versatile performer, mezzo Serenna Wagner is an accomplished musician ‘possessed of vocal power and pathos’ with a ‘commanding stage presence.’ Career highlights have included the title role in the critically-acclaimed UK premiere of Monuiszko’s Halka; Suzuki at Buxton Opera House and creating the roles of Fanny Price in Dove’s Mansfield Park and Polly in Alan Edward Williams’ The Arsonists for Heritage Opera. Serenna has worked regularly as a soloist with UK opera companies and also sang with ENO for several years following her time on their Opera Works young artists’ programme. An experienced oratorio soloist and recital singer, she has worked with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé and the Academy of Ancient Music. Her performances have been broadcast on BBC TV and Radio 3.

Mark Saberton
Mark lives in Sudbury, Suffolk. He studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and now sings at the Royal Opera House where he recorded the role of Ben Budge (Beggars Opera). At English National Opera he played Zurga (Pearlfishers), Pizarro (Fidelio) and Lepidus/Mereia (Caligula). Other roles include Rigoletto, Mephistopheles (Faust) Bottom (Midsummer Night’s Dream), Scarpia (Tosca), Antonio (Marriage of Figaro) and Hotel Waiter & Boatman (Death in Venice) for Aldeburgh & Bregenz Festivals. Mark has performed several times with Bampton Classical Opera including ‘Waiting for Figaro’ under Edward Gardner. His singing has regularly featured on BBC Radio 3. Concert work includes Brahms’ Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana and Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony. Mark performs regularly with pianist, Joe Richardson. Acting engagements include Cornwall’s Servant in King Lear at the Grange Festival with Sir John Tomlinson, Sir Thomas Allen and director Keith Warner.

Heather Heighway
Chester born Soprano Heather Heighway graduated from Birmingham Conservatoire in 2013. Since then, Heather has played numerous operatic roles including Susannah in Le Nozze Di Figaro, Adele in Die Fledermaus, Valencienne in The Merry Widow, Olympia in the Tales of Hoffman, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Micaela in Carmen, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Gilda in Rigoletto. Heather has been the soprano soloist in many classical choral works but also has a love for new music playing Missy in Off the Beaten Track by Oldham and recording the role of Phaedra in Hippolytus by Fardon. She has worked with the composer Simon Emmerson, performing his piece for voice and tape Time Past IV. Together with her husband Joseph Buckmaster they are founders of Flat Pack Music focussing on accessible opera.

Joseph Buckmaster
Joseph Buckmaster is a Lyric Spinto Tenor, who studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. For Heritage Opera Joseph performed Tamino (The Magic Flute), Ferrando (Cosi fan Tutte), Basilio and Don Curzio (The Marriage of Figaro) and covered the role of Don Jose (Carmen). With Flat Pack Music he has performed these roles plus Rodolfo (La Boheme). In 2021 he sang the role of Male 1 in the world premiere of The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko for Grange Park Opera. He has worked with Opera Holland Park, performing the role of Monsieur Triquet (Eugene Onegin), and If Opera where he performed as Ruggero (La Rondine). This year Joseph will return to OHP to perform the role of Rodolfo in La Boheme and IO as a guest artist in Alice’s adventures in Wonderland.
Joseph is an extra chorister for both the Royal Opera House and English National Opera.