Jill Gomez

Jill Carnegy, Countess of Northesk (née Gomez; 21 September 1942 – 11 August 2026) was a Trinidadian and British soprano. Trained in London in voice and piano from the age of 13, she began her career in 1968 with the Glyndebourne Festival as Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, followed by Debussy's Mélisande and Cavalli's La Calisto over the next two years. She created the roles of Flora in Tippett's The Knot Garden at the Royal Opera House in London in 1970 and of the Countess in Thea Musgrave's The Voice of Ariadne at the 1973 Aldeburgh Festival. She appeared in lyric roles at several opera houses in the UK and Europe, including a production of Mozart's Lucio Silla at the Zürich Opera directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Her 1995 creation of the lead role of the Duchess of Argyll in Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès was particularly acclaimed and its original-cast recording was nominated for a Grammy Award. Besides opera, she recorded as a soloist in choral-symphonic works, such as Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Georg Solti, sang cantatas by Thomas Arne with Jaap Schröder, performed song cycles with chamber ensemble by Ravel and Webern conducted by Pierre Boulez, and recorded Spanish and French songs such as Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne. An obituary in The Telegraph noted that she was "blessed with a sensuously beautiful and creamy voice".