Royal was born in London and attended Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth, Dorset.
She later studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and then the National Opera Studio, graduating in the summer of 2004.
[1] Royal began to attract wider notice as an understudy for the role of Pamina in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 2004, when she replaced the lead soprano at one performance.
[5] Later the same year, she signed a recording contract with EMI Classics, and her first disc of songs and arias was released in September 2007.
[7] Royal and her husband, actor and singer Julian Ovenden, have a son and a daughter.