| Biography | British contralto Claudia Huckle studied at the Royal College of Music, The New England Conservatory and The Curtis Institute of Music. She is the first female recipient of the Birgit Nilsson Prize for singing Wagner at the 2013 Operalia World Opera Competition. She was also a 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.
Opera plans this season and beyond include Hippolyta in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream for Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Olga Eugene Onegin for Angers-Nantes Opera and in her debut with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte.
Concert plans include Mahler Symphony No 2 with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra; Handel Messiah with the Ulster Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and at the Royal Albert Hall; Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder on tour in Spain and Mathias Lux Aeterna for the 2015 Three Choirs Festival.
In July 2013, Claudia completed four years as a member of the ensemble of Leipzig Opera, where roles included Olga Eugene Onegin; Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel; Third Lady Die Zauberflöte; Clarice/Linetta in Prokofiev The Love for Three Oranges; Voice from Above and Flower Maiden Parsifal; Flosshilde Das Rheingold; First Maid Elektra; Schwertleite Die Walküre; Venus in Kurt Weil One Touch of Venus and Singer in Puccini Manon Lescaut.
Other recent opera performances have included the title role in Britten The Rape of Lucretia in a new production by Fiona Shaw for Glyndebourne on Tour; Marfa in Graham Vick's new production of Mussorgsky Khovanshchina for Birmingham Opera Company; Hänsel for Garsington Opera; Smeton in Donizetti Anna Bolena for Washington National Opera; Olga Eugene Onegin, Pitti-Sing The Mikado and Duchess in Torsten Rasch The Duchess of Malfi for English National Opera; the Foresters Wife The Cunning Little Vixen for Deutsche Oper Berlin; Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte at the Festival d'Aix en Provence and for Dresden Semperoper; The Page Salome for Santa Fe Opera and, in concert, Anna in Berlioz Les Troyens (Act 5) with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev.
As a Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist, Claudias roles with Washington National Opera included Irene Tamerlano with Placido Domingo and David Daniels; Second Maid in Strauss Elektra; Countess Ceprano Rigoletto; Hansel Hansel and Gretel; Kate Pinkerton Madama Butterfly and Siegrune Die Walküre with Domingo as Siegmund.
In concert Claudia has sung Janácek Glagolitic Mass at the 2014 Edinburgh International Festival; Mary Magdalene in Elgar The Apostles at the 2014 Three Choirs Festival; Mahler Rückert Lieder with the Britten Sinfonia and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Bach Magnificat with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and John Nelson; Mozart Requiem and Bach St Matthew Passion with The Monteverdi Choir and Sir John Eliot Gardiner; Beethoven Symphony No 9 with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra; Handel Messiah with the San Francisco Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, The Academy of Ancient Music and Orquesta Sinfónica di Navarro; Zelenka I Penitenti al Sepolcro del Redentore with the Freiburger Barockorchester; Haydn Nelson Mass with the Northern Sinfonia; Beethoven Missa Solemnis with Sir Roger Norrington at Kings College, Cambridge and Bruckner Te Deum with the Rheinische Philharmonie.
Claudia has been the recipient of The Sybil Tutton Award, a prize winner at both the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition and The Sullivan Foundation Competition and the Grand Final Winner of The Thelma King Award for Singers. (December 2014) |