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 her début at Teatro alla Scala Milan singing Die allwissende Muschel in Strauss Die Ägyptische Helena, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. She will sing Flosshilde Das Rheingold for Teatro Real, Madrid; Erda Das Rheingold / Siegfried for Grand Théâtre de Genève; and return to the Royal Opera to sing First Norn Götterdämmerung and Schwertleite Die Walküre; and she will make her début at Opéra National de Paris, also in the Ring Cycle. Concert plans include Brahms Alto Rhapsody with the Northern Sinfonia and Lars Vogt; Bach St Matthew Passion with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and Nicholas McGegan; Handel Messiah with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and Trevor Pinnock; Mahler Symphony No 2 at the Festival de Saint-Denis with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Myung-Whun Chung; Schwertleite with the Bayerische Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle; Mahler Kindertotenlieder with the BBCSSO and Michael Sanderling; Mendelssohn Elijah with the BBCSO and Sakari Oramo; and Mahler Symphony No 8 with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and Daniel Harding.

Opera roles include Erda Das Rheingold / Siegfried for Opera North and Oper Leipzig; 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; 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 also sung Anna in Berlioz Les Troyens with Valery Gergiev and Maxwell Davies’ Hogboon under Sir Simon Rattle, both with the LSO.

Recent concerts include Dream of Gerontius, Elgar Sea Pictures and Mahler Symphony No 2 with Hallé Orchestra; Sea Pictures with BBC National Orchestra of Wales; Verdi Requiem in King’s College Cambridge; and Mendelssohn-Handel Israel in Ägypten with the King’s Consort. She appeared as a soloist with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Thomas Sondergard performing Mahler Symphony No 8 at the 2018 BBC Proms.

Other 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; Mahler Lieder with the Britten Sinfonia and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; and Missa Solemnis with Sir Roger Norrington at King’s College, Cambridge.