Opera Scotland

Lillian Stiles-Allen Suggest updates

Stiles Allen.

English soprano.

Stiles-Allen had an important career on the concert platform between the wars, culminating in her being chosen as the second of four sopranos among the sixteen solo singers in the Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music in 1938, to honour Sir Henry Wood.  As a guest on the BBC's Desert Island Discs shortly before her death she explained her choice of a concert career excluding opera was simply because she felt uneasy on stage due to her size.

In retirement she was a well known teacher, with students including the young Julie Andrews.