A commanding, sensual, leonine presence with a voice of copper silk.

—The Independent (UK)

Program

ELGAR: Speak, Music; Pleading
QUILTER: There be None of Beauty's Daughters; Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal; Love's Philosophy
STANFORD: La Belle Dame Sans Merci
ELGAR: Sea Pictures
ARGENTO: Songs from the Diary of Virginia Woolf
LIZA LEHMANN: Love if you knew the light (Browning); Ah, moon of my delight (Omar Khyam)
VALERIE WHITE: So we'll go no more a roving (Byron)
PEEL: The Early Morning
STANFORD: A Soft Day
WARLOCK: Late Summer
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Silent Noon
GURNEY: The Boat is Chafing; Lights Out             

About This Performance

For British mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, communication with her audience is paramount: “Audiences are powerful things…You can’t simply be a singer standing there: you have to talk, human being to human being.” With frequent collaborator, pianist Julius Drake, Coote has become a much sought-after recitalist whose approach brings a quality of haunted and intense storytelling. The Guardian (UK) exclaims, “it is hard to think of another singer who gives so much of herself to anything she sings in a lieder recital, living every bar and compelling the audience to go along with her.”

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artist biography

Alice Coote studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, the Royal Northern College of Music and the National Opera Studio. She gratefully acknowledges the support of the Peter Moores Foundation. She has been awarded the Brigitte Fassbaender Award for Lieder Interpretation and the Decca Kathleen Ferrier Prize.

In concert, she has performed with the LPO, Hallé, OAE, RLPO, RPO, Philharmonia, Concertgebouw, Rotterdam and New York Philharmonic Orchestras under conductors including Nagano, Pešek, Menuhin, Boulez, Elder, Salonen, Gergiev, Dohnanyi, Christie, McGegan, Haïm, Hickox in London, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Brussels, Madrid, New York and Salzburg. In 2001, she made her debut at the BBC ‘Last Night of the PROMS’.

In recital, Alice Coote and Julius Drake are in demand throughout Europe and the US. At the BBC Chamber Proms 2003 they performed the world premiere of Judith Weir’s song cycle The Voice of Desire written especially for them. They gave a repeat performance of this piece at the 2007 PROMS. They also regularly appear at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and at New York’s Lincoln Centre.

Alice’s recordings have included Walton’s Gloria (Chandos), The Choice of Hercules (Hyperion), Orfeo (Virgin Classics) , The Dream of Gerontius (Halle Label) and a highly acclaimed recital disc of Schumann and Mahler for EMI with Julius Drake.

Her operatic roles include Gluck's Orfeo, Ariodante, Sesto/Tito, Sesto/Cesare, Ruggiero, Composer, Poppea, Penelope, Dorabella, Cherubino, Lucretia, Hansel, Orlando, Orlowsky, Oktavian, Nerone and Carmen for opera companies including ROH Covent Garden, ENO, Glyndebourne, Opera North, WNO, Scottish Opera, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Paris, Nancy, Nantes, the MET, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, and the Salzburg Festival. Most recently, she gave role debuts as Idamante/Idomeneo in San Francisco and Maffio Orsini/Lucrezia Borgia in Munich and appeared as Hansel at the MET and at the ROH Covent Garden.

Upcoming opera engagements include Charlotte/Werther and Marguerite/Damnation de Faust in Frankfurt, Oktavian/Der Rosenkavalier for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Composer/Ariadne auf Naxos in Munich and on tour in Japan, Hansel/Hänsel und Gretel at Glyndebourne and at the MET.