Obituary: Amanda Holden

Amanda was a highly renowned librettist, translator and pianist, who after studying for an MA in Music at Oxford University, received a scholarship to study at Guildhall School in 1969, where she later taught piano while also working as a freelance accompanist. She also studied Music Therapy at Guildhall School, and in 1974 began the music department at Charing Cross Hospital's centre for children with learning difficulties.

Amanda first wrote for the opera house when she co-translated the libretto of Mozart's Don Giovanni for Jonathan Miller's production at English National Opera in 1985. She worked regularly with ENO, ETO, Opera North, Raymond Gubbay's arena productions and Chandos' Opera in English series. Some of her lyrics have been used more widely, for example by Werner Herzog for a short La bohème film and on BBC Radio 4's The Archers.

In the mid-1980s Amanda started work on the Viking/Penguin Opera Guides, which detail the lives and operatic works of hundreds of composers. The most recent edition - and the only one in print - is The Concise Penguin Guide to Opera. A website edition is in the pipeline, and a more streamlined variant is available on Amazon Kindle as The Opera Guide. As a result of this huge work, Amanda became one of the most profoundly knowledgeable people about the whole opera legacy, and someone extraordinarily well connected with musicologists across the globe.

As well as translations, Amanda has written librettos. In particular she worked with Brett Dean on Bliss in 2010 and Mark-Anthony Turnage on The Silver Tassie in 2000, for which she won an Olivier award the following year. On a smaller scale, she wrote Family Matters in 2004, for Tête à Tête, based on Beaumarchais’ La Mère Coupable. In 2019 she worked closely with the Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen on a translation of his opera The Snow Queen for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

Amanda was a valued alumna and staff member of the School, and regularly attended performances and supported Guildhall students.

If any Guildhall School alumni, staff and friends wish to send in your memories and condolence messages for Amanda’s friends and family, please email alumni@gsmd.ac.uk with your message.