AN ASPIRING opera singer has made her debut with Scottish Opera Young Company and is the only English member of the company.

Sophie Montgomery, a Year 13 student at Richmond Sixth Form College, was part of the company’s challenging, dramatic and powerful production of Gluck’s Orfeo & Euridice.

The prestigious Scottish Opera brought together promising young operatic talent and seventeen-year-old Sophie was privileged to secure a place.

Sophie has spent 90 hours travelling to Glasgow every other weekend since September, for rigorous rehearsals, giving up an enormous amount of time while studying for her A-levels this summer.

As a chorus member, Sophie played a Furie, a wedding guest and one of the people of Elysium.

Her ambition is to be a professional opera singer one day and is thrilled that she is already signed up for next year’s production of Merrily We Roll Along, and then hopes to pursue her musical studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

She said: "I have a dream to be an opera singer; it’s all I want to do. When I sing opera I can feel how it stirs emotions and inspires people, it's a wonderful feeling to move others through the power of the human voice.”