Susan Graham

About

The American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham has emerged in the 1990s as one of the most acclaimed singers of her generation. She continues to bring fresh energy to the definitive lyric mezzo operatic roles -- Strauss' Octavian and Composer, Mozart's Chérubino and Dorabella, Massenet's Charlotte and Cherubin, and Berlioz' Béatrice and Marguerite -- while also establishing herself as a distinguished concert artist and recitalist.

Under her exclusive contract for solo projects with Sony Classical, Graham recorded a recital entitled La Belle Epoque: The Songs of Reynaldo Hahn, featuring rarely recorded mélodies from fin-de-siècle Paris, with pianist Roger Vignoles. This album (SK 60168) was released in the autumn of 1998 and has since been awarded the "Choc du Monde de la Musique" (10/98), Opera International's "Timbre de Platine" (10/98), the "Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik" (1/99) and the 1999 Caecilia Prize. Graham also won international critical acclaim for her first solo recording for Sony Classical, another all-French disc featuring vocal music of Hector Berlioz, including Les nuits d'été and a selection of opera arias, with John Nelson conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. "It would be hard to imagine a more inspiriting and rewarding display of Berlioz singing than this from a singer who has the composer's style in her voice and heart," Gramophone wrote in its review of the recording, adding, "Graham manages to explore and deliver the soul of each of her chosen pieces, her voice -- firm yet vibrant, clear yet warm -- responding interpretatively and technically to the appreciable demands placed on it by this program." Graham can also be heard in Sony Classical's recording of Schumann's Scenes from Faust, with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic.

A frequent guest at the Metropolitan Opera since her 1991 debut, Graham will return this fall to sing in three separate productions. She will participate in the much anticipated premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby. She will reprise her celebrated role as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, under the direction of Edo de Waart, and she will sing the role of Octavian in Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, under the direction of James Levine.

During the 2000-2001 season, Graham will star in the San Fransisco Opera world premiere of Jake Heggie's and Terrence McNally's operatic retelling of Dead Man Walking. Graham will bring the central role of Sister Helen to life in the adaptation for the opera stage of the widely-lauded, best-selling novel that became an Oscar-winning film starring Susan Sarandon and directed by Tim Robbins. Graham will be joined by Frederica von Stade as the inmate's mother.

Other appearances during the 1999-2000 season include La Damnation de Faust with Seiji Ozawa at the Saito Kinen Festival, Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Berlin Deutsche Oper Orchestra and Christian Thielmann, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxosat Munich's Bayerische Staatsoper and Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier in London at the Royal Opera Covent Garden.

A highly acclaimed recital singer, Graham will celebrate the art of song with a recital tour of major venues around the world, making stops in Germany, Austria, Spain, Canada, France, The Netherlands (at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw), England (at London's Wigmore Hall), and in the United States (at New York's Alice Tully Hall), among others.

In January of 1999, the singer returned to the Metropolitan Opera for a new production of Massenet's Werther, in which she sang the role of Charlotte opposite Thomas Hampson in the title role, in the first Met performances of the composer's rarely performed version of the opera for baritone. Graham's forthcoming season includes Mozart's La clemenza di Tito and Handel's Alcina in Paris and Berlioz' Béatrice et Bénédict in London. During the summer of 1998, she sang Béatrice at the Santa Fe Opera in a new production of Béatrice et Bénédict, as well as appearing in concert at the Tanglewood Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival at New York's Lincoln Center.

A favourite artist at the Salzburg Festival, Susan Graham has appeared there in productions of Le nozze di Figaro, La clemenza di Tito, Lucio Silla, Falstaff and L'Orfeo there. She returns to the Festival in 2000 to sing the title role in a new production of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. In recent seasons, she made a series of acclaimed European debuts, including the Vienna State Opera as Octavian, La Scala as Marguerite in La damnation de Faust conducted by Seiji Ozawa, and Glyndebourne and the Paris Opera as Dorabella in Così fan tutte, the latter marking the reopening of the Palais Garnier for operatic performances. At the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, she has appeared as Chérubin and Dorabella in new productions and also the title role in the world premiere of Monteverdi's Arianna, as reconstructed by Alexander Goehr. She has performed Béatrice in Berlioz' Béatrice et Bénédict at L'Opera de Lyon, Octavian at Welsh National Opera, and Charlotte in a new production of Werther at the Netherlands Opera.

In concert Susan Graham has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the title role in Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges, conducted by Seiji Ozawa. She has sung Mahler's Rückert Lieder and Fourth Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra and Edo de Waart. In addition to her Salzburg Festival concerts, she has performed Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été with Sir Colin Davis and the New York Philharmonic, with Antonio Pappano at Brussels' Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie and, in Paris, with Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre National de France, as well as in Boston, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Sydney and Lyon. With the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the St. Louis Symphony, she has appeared in Mozart's Mass in C Minor. Graham has collaborated often with conductors Claudio Abbado, Charles Dutoit, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Neville Marriner, John Eliot Gardiner, Donald Runnicles, Edo de Waart, Kent Nagano, James Levine, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Georg Solti and Robert Shaw, among others. Susan Graham made her professional recital debut in San Francisco's prestigious Schwabacher Debut series.

A graduate of Manhattan School of Music, Susan Graham is a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Schwabacher Award of San Francisco Opera's Merola Program, and a recipient of a career grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation.

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