Currently working as deputy editor of Opera magazine and programme editor for Garsington Opera, her career in opera began with English National Opera, where she worked on compiling, editing and writing for the company’s opera programmes and a series of individual Opera Guides, also contributing to advertising and marketing strategy and working on Coliseum Magazine and the annual company review.

She went on to become co-founder and artistic administrator of ENO’s Contemporary Opera Studio, a project devoted to the commissioning, development and performance of new operas. This led to the launch of Almeida Opera, an annual festival of contemporary work, and the world premiere performance of operas including Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès, The Man with the Wind at his Heels by Kevin Volans and Siren Song by Jonathan Dove.

She has written two books for children, Christmas Eve and The Prince and the Goosegirl (published by Child’s Play International), based on the operas by Rimsky-Korsakov and Humperdinck (Königskinder).

For Opera North she produced over 100 programme books and she has also edited publications for the Royal Opera House, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Spitalfields Festival, the European Commission and the Barbican Centre, and has compiled and edited celebratory publications on Kathleen Ferrier and on Birmingham Opera Company.

As an administrator/organizer, Henrietta has run a conference, Reaching the Audience of the Future, for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation at the National Theatre; co-ordinated events to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin; devised a series of talks and interviews for the Sotheby’s Institute and managed a research project for the Arts Council of England’s New Audiences Scheme.

For the Royal Opera House, she has written website and schools’ material and devised and directed a festival of events around Wagner’s Ring cycle including concerts, pre-performance talks, a magic lantern show, lectures at the British Library and a series of Wagner films at the British Film Institute on the Southbank.

For the premiere of King, an opera about Thomas Becket and King Henry II by Stephen Barlow, written for and performed in Canterbury Cathedral, she researched background material, compiled a programme, managed publicity and raised substantial funds by undertaking a 3-day walk (with the composer and librettist) from the place where Becket was born in the City of London to the place where he was killed in Canterbury.

As production co-ordinator she worked with the late Richard Hickox and the Philharmonia Orchestra on Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrim’s Progress at Sadler’s Wells; on Schnittke’s Faust with conductor Vladimir Jurowski, director Annabel Arden and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall; and, again with the Philharmonia, on Berg’s Wozzeck at the Royal Festival Hall and in Paris; on Tristan und Isolde, in a realisation by Peter Sellars and Bill Viola, with performances in Dortmund, Lucerne, Birmingham and London; and on a European tour of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle with singers John Tomlinson and Michelle DeYoung, all with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

In June 2014 she devised, with David Pountney, Call Me George, a celebration of the life in music of George, Earl of Harewood, staged by English National Opera at the London Coliseum.

Her articles and interviews have appeared in newspapers, magazines, numerous theatre and opera programmes and she writes regularly for Country Life and Opera magazine.