Susan Gritton

Winner of the 1994 Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Prize, Susan Gritton read botany at Oxford and London Universities before taking up a career in singing.

Her operatic engagements have included Liù (Turandot), Micäela (Carmen), Mařenka (The Bartered Bride) and Ismene (Mitridate) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Romilda (Xerxes), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), the title role of ‘Rodelinda' and Fiordiligi at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich; and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) at Opéra de Montréal. At the Glyndebourne Festival she has sung Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and the title role of ‘Theodora'. Her many roles at the English National Opera have included Countess Almaviva (Le (nozze di Figaro), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) and the title role of 'The Cunning Little Vixen'. Other appearances have included Governess (The Turn of the Screw) and Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites) at Aldeburgh; Marzelline (Fidelio) for Rome Opera; Tytania (A Midsummer Night's Dream) for Teatro la Fenice, Venice and Fiordiligi at the Mostly Mozart Festival, New York.

Engagements this season include Konstanze at the Bayerische Staatsoper; Fiordiligi at the ENO and her operatic debut in Vienna in a new staged production of Handel's ‘Messiah'. Future plans include her role debut as Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) for Opera Australia and Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites) at the Bayerische Staatsoper.

She appears regularly in concert with many of the world's great orchestras and conductors in venues such as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Salzburg Mozarteum and New York's Carnegie Hall and her recent engagements have included the Berlin Philharmonic with Rattle and Norrington, the LSO with Harding, the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Haitink, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Mackerras, the New York Philharmonic with Sir Colin Davis, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with Jeffrey Tate, and the Philharmonia with Andrew Davis.

Her concert engagements this season include appearances with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Pappano, the Rotterdam Philharmonic with Frans Bruggen and Carnegie Hall with Helmuth Rilling.

A regular recitalist, her appearances include the Wigmore Hall with Graham Johnson, the Lincoln Centre in New York with Eugene Asti and the Oxford Lieder Festival. She has recorded songs by Britten, Medtner, Schubert, Fanny Hensel and Clara Schumann. Her extensive discography also includes Handel's ‘Saul', ‘Solomon', ‘Theodora' (title role), 'Messiah', ‘L'Allegro' and ‘The Choice of Hercules'; Brahms' ‘Requiem'; Mozart's ‘Requiem'; Masses by Haydn, Hummel and Schubert and the roles of Mařenka (nominated for a Grammy Award); Elena (Paride ed Elena); Hero (Béatrice et Bénédict); Nannetta (Falstaff); Tiny (Paul Bunyan) and Miss Wordsworth (Albert Herring).

She lives in Surrey with her husband and two children.

Photo credit: Tim Cantrell