Laila Cathleen Neuman completed her bachelors degree cum laude at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan with Margaret Hayward. She continued her studies with Breda Zakotnik and Barbara Bonney at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where she obtained her master's degree in Lied and Oratorio with honours.  

 

She specializes in historical acting techniques, and is part of The Dutch Historical Acting Collective. Opera roles include the roles of 'Melpomene' in Il Parnaso Confuso, and 'Atalanta' in La Corona, both by C. W. v. Gluck, in Salzburg, Vienna, and Copenhagen; the titel role in Didone Abbandonata by D. Sarri with Orkiestra Historyczna, at the reopening of the Valtice baroque theatre in the Czech Republic; 'Tusnelda' in J. A. Hasse's Arminio, with {OH!} in the Czech Republic and in Poland. In 2019 she performed the roles of Galathée and Colette in Rousseau's Pygmalion and Le Devin du Village, in the historical Confidencen theatre in Sweden.

 

Period acting also brought her to perform the melodrama genre: in performances of Georg Benda's Medea at the Early music Festival in Utrecht and as Galathée in Pygmalion by J.J.Rousseau, several productions of 'Performing Premodernity' in the historical Cesky Krumlov Theatre and the Riddarhuset in Stockholm. In 2021 and 2022 she performed Goethe/Eberwein's Proserpina with Postscript at the Utrecht Early Music Festival and the Overacting Festival, in the Netherlands.

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Further performed repertoire includes the Matthäus Passion, Johannes Passion, Oster- and Weihnachts Oratorio by J.S.Bach, the Stabat Maters by G.B. Pergolesi, L. Boccherini, and A. Scarlatti. With Jan Cizmar and Jean-Sébastien Beauvais she created Le Jardin des Plaisirs, performing at the Concentus Moraviae Festival, the REMA showcase in Prague, the Baroquiales Festival in Sospel, France, and at the Sastamala Gregoriana Festival in Finland.