Susan Bullock

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  Susan Bullock
 

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“…it’s Susan Bullock’s Brünnhilde who steals the show, with singing that has psychological depth as well as polish and strength.”

– Shirley Apthorp, Financial Times, 5 March 2007

Susan Bullock is now one of the world’s most sought after dramatic sopranos and in recent seasons she has appeared as Brünnhilde at the New National Theatre, Tokyo; with the Canadian Opera Company; at Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos in Lisbon; at La Fenice; and most recently at Opéra de Lyon and with the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Adam Fisher. She has performed the role of Isolde in London, Frankfurt, Verona, Leeds, Perth and Rouen.

Above all, the role of Richard Strauss’s Elektra has bought Miss Bullock substantial international acclaim, and collaborations with some of the world’s leading conductors, including Bychkov, Ozawa and de Waart, and debuts at La Scala, in Dresden, Stuttgart, Hong Kong, Florence (Maggio Musicale) and with Washington National Opera.

This season Susan Bullock makes her role debut as Katerina Ismailove (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) with Opera Australia and appears at Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos in Lisbon as Brünnhilde (Siegfried). She recently returned to Covent Garden in the title role of Elektra; in concert she sings Britten’s War Requiem at the International Festival Wratislavia Cantans under Paul McCreesh and Strauss’s Four Last Songs with NHK Symphony Orchestra under Edo de Waart.

Other recent roles have included Marie in Wozzeck at Covent Garden under Daniel Harding, Female Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia) for Bayerische Staatsoper, Lady Macbeth (Bloch’s Macbeth) in Vienna, Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber with Oper Frankfurt, and Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) for English National Opera and for Royal Danish Opera.

Susan Bullock’s concert work has been vast and diverse, and has recently included her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Mark Elder (Hänsel und Gretel); Schoenberg’s Erwartung with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under David Robertson; the Prelude & Liebestod from Tristan with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia; and with Zubin Mehta and the Orchestra of the Bayerische Staatsoper. Susan Bullock made her official Wigmore Hall recital debut in 2005 and gave a recital at the 2008 Edinburgh International Festival with Malcolm Martineau.

Her discography includes Genièvre (Chausson’s Le roi Arthus) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein for Telarc; Lady Billows (Albert Herring) with the City of London Sinfonia under Richard Hickox; Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Yan Pascal Tortelier; and Magda (Menotti’s The Consul) with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra under Richard Hickox, all for Chandos. Her recital disk with pianist Malcolm Martineau (which includes Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, and Prokofiev’s Five Poems of Anna Akhmatova) was released by Avie in February 2007 and was listed as BBC Music Choice in BBC Music Magazine. Her recording in the title role in Salome with the Philharmonia under Sir Charles Mackerras was released in 2008 on Chandos.

For her 2008 performances as Elektra at Covent Garden and Opera North, Susan Bullock was recently awarded The Royal Philharmonic Society Singers Award.

Future plans include Parsifal at Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona; Elektra at Théâtre du Capitole du Toulouse; and complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen at Oper Frankfurt and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.