Artists

British contralto Claudia Huckle studied at the Royal College of Music, London, the New England Conservatory and the Curtis Institute of Music. She was the 2004 Grand Final Winner of The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and is a graduate of the prestigious Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program at Washington National Opera. Claudia is the 2013 winner of the Birgit Nilsson Remembrance Award at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition at Verona – the first female, and first British recipient. She was a member of the ensemble at Leipzig Opera for four seasons from 2009.

Plans this season and beyond include Olga Eugene Onegin for Welsh National Opera; Erda Das Rheingold / Siegfried for Leipzig Opera; Flosshilde Das Rheingold for Teatro Real, Madrid; and a return to the Royal Opera to sing First Norn Götterdämmerung and Schwertleite Die Walküre in their 2018 Wagner Ring Cycle. Concert plans include Dream of Gerontius and Mahler Symphony No 2 with Hallé Orchestra; Elgar Sea Pictures with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Tadaaki Otaka; Verdi Requiem in King’s College Cambridge with Jac van Steen; Bach St Matthew Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Mark Padmore; and Mendelssohn-Handel Israel in Ägypten with the King’s Consort. She will also appear as a soloist with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Thomas Sondergard performing Mahler Symphony No 8 at the BBC Proms.

Opera roles include Erda Das Rheingold / Siegfried for Opera North; the title role in Britten The Rape of Lucretia and Suzuki Madam Butterfly for Glyndebourne on Tour; Hippolyta in Britten A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Marfa in Mussorgsky Khovanshchina for Birmingham Opera Company; Hänsel for Garsington Opera; Smeton in Donizetti Anna Bolena for Washington National Opera; Mérope Oedipe with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden where she also appeared as Third Lady Zauberflöte, a role she has sung at the Festival d’Aix en Provence and for Dresden Semperoper; Olga, Hänsel, Third Lady for Leipzig Opera; and Dalila in Saint-Saëns Samson et Dalila for the Chelsea Opera Group. In concert, she has sung Schwertleite Die Walküre with Sir Andrew Davis for the Edinburgh International Festival; Anna in Berlioz Les Troyens with Valery Gergiev and Maxwell Davies’ Hogboon under Sir Simon Rattle, both with the LSO; Second Maid Elektra with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Past concerts include Schubert Mass in A flat and Beethoven Choral Fantasy with Kent Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester; De Falla El amor brujo with Britten Sinfonia; Mahler Symphony No 3 with Real Filharmonía de Galicia and in King’s College Cambridge, both with Paul Daniel; Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Kindertotenlieder on tour in Spain and Rückert Lieder with the Britten Sinfonia and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Missa Solemnis with Sir Roger Norrington at King’s College, Cambridge and Mary Magdalene in Elgar The Apostles at the Three Choirs Festival.

Claudia has also sung Messiah with the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, the San Francisco Symphony, Academy of Ancient Music, Huddersfield Choral Society, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Orquesta Sinfónica di Navarro; Zelenka I Penitenti a Sepolcro del Redentore with the Freiburger Barockorchester and Bach St John Passion with the Ulster Orchestra.