Cheryl Barker

Cheryl Ruth Barker AO (born 22 April 1960, Sydney) is an Australian operatic soprano who has had an active international career since the late 1980s.

In 1984, Barker moved with her husband, baritone Peter Coleman-Wright, to London, so that he could assume his new position as a member of the choir at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Her first major critical success came in 1990 at her debut at the Sydney Opera House as Mimì in Puccini's La bohème, directed by Baz Luhrmann.

With Opera Australia she has performed Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, Cio-Cio San, Desdemona in Otello, Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Affair, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Marie/Mariette in the Australian premiere, directed by Bruce Beresford, of Die tote Stadt, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Marzelline in Fidelio, Nedda in Pagliacci, and the title roles in Arabella, Manon Lescaut, Salome and Suor Angelica.

Barker's appearances with the English National Opera include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, the Foreign Princess in Rusalka, The Governess and Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw, Oksana in Christmas Eve, Musetta, Tosca, and the title role in Richard Strauss's Salome.

In 2004 she portrayed Sarah Miles in the world premiere of Jake Heggie's The End of the Affair at the Houston Grand Opera with her husband Peter Coleman-Wright as her role-husband and Teddy Tahu Rhodes as her lover.

[5] The inaugural Australian cruise of the performing arts on the MS Radiance of the Seas in November 2014 included Barker as well as, among others, David Hobson, Colin Lane, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Simon Tedeschi, Elaine Paige, Marina Prior, and Jonathon Welch.