Susan Bullock

"Susan Bullock’s Elektra is astonishing – her acting glint-eyed and obsessive, her singing turbo-charged, her stamina immense and her performance as intense as anything I’ve seen at Covent Garden this year.“

– Richard Morrison, The Times, 10 November 2008

Susan Bullock is now one of the world’s most sought-after dramatic sopranos and in recent seasons she has appeared as Wagner’s Brünnhilde at the New National Theatre, Tokyo; with the Canadian Opera Company; at Teatro La Fenice; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; at Opéra de Lyon; and at Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisbon. She has performed the role of Isolde in London, Frankfurt, Verona, Leeds and Rouen.

Above all, the role of Richard Strauss’s Elektra has brought Susan Bullock substantial international acclaim and collaborations with some of the world’s leading conductors including Bychkov, Ozawa, Elder and de Waart; and debuts at La Scala, in Dresden, Stuttgart, Hong Kong, Florence (Maggio Musicale), and with Washington National Opera. She received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s (singer) award in 2009 for her performances of Elektra at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

This season Susan Bullock makes her company debuts at The Metropolitan Opera and at Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse in the role of Elektra. She returns to Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisbon as Brünnhilde (Götterdämmerung).

Recent roles have included Marie in Wozzeck for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden under Daniel Harding, Female Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia) for Bayerische Staatsoper, Katerina Ismailova (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) for Opera Australia, and the title role in Salome under Edo de Waart in Hong Kong.

Susan Bullock’s concert work has been vast and diverse, and has recently included her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Mark Elder with Hänsel und Gretel; Strauss’s Four Last Songs with NHK Symphony Orchestra under Edo de Waart; Schoenberg’s Erwartung with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under David Robertson; and the Prelude & Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra, and also with Zubin Mehta and the Orchestra of the Bayerische Staatsoper. Susan Bullock made her official Wigmore Hall recital debut in 2005, her Edinburgh International Festival debut in 2008 in recital with Malcolm Martineau, and in 2009 she was the first artist to give a vocal recital at the newly opened Melbourne Recital Centre.

Her discography includes Chausson’s Le roi Arthus with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein for Telarc; 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 the role of Magda Sorel in 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 of the title role in Salome with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Sir Charles Mackerras was released in the autumn of 2008 on Chandos.

Future plans include role debuts as Kundry (Parsifal) at Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona and Emelia Marty (Věc Makropulos) for Oper Frankfurt, and complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen for both Oper Frankfurt and Teatro Nacional de São Carlos.