Susanna Phillips
Susanna Phillips is an American opera singer who has sung leading lyric soprano roles at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Santa Fe Opera, the Metropolitan Opera as well as internationally.
Life and career
Phillips was born in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up in Huntsville where she attended Randolph School. At Randolph, she also began studying voice with Ginger Beazley at Ars Nova School of the Arts. She received Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School where she was a student of Cynthia Hoffmann.[1] After completing her master's degree in 2004, she became a member of Santa Fe Opera's Apprentice Program for Singers, where she covered the role of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni during the 2004 summer season.
Phillips was a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions in March 2005,[2] and won both First Prize in the women's division and the People's Choice Prize at Plácido Domingo's Operalia International Opera Competition (Madrid, 2005).[3] In March 2005, she joined Lyric Opera Center for American Artists at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
She participated in Santa Fe's 50th Anniversary Arias Gala Concert on 12 August 2006 and sang the role of Pamina in the final two performances of the 2006 season production of The Magic Flute. For Santa Fe's 2007 season, she sang the role of Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut on 15 March 2008 singing Musetta in La Bohème and has returned to The Met during numerous seasons to sing this role, as well as Pamina (2009, 2010), Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (2012), Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte (2013, 2014), Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann (2015), and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus (2014, 2015, 2016). In 2010 she won the Met's Beverly Sills Award .[2][4]
Over the last decade she has held leading operatic roles at numerous companies such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, Oper Frankfurt, Santa Fe Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Minnesota Opera, Opera Birmingham, Fort Worth Opera, Boston Baroque, Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Verbier Festival, Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona, Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, and Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan.
Highly in demand by the world’s most prestigious orchestras, Phillips has appeared with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Mexico National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Oratorio Society of New York, Santa Fe Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Dallas Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Santa Fe Concert Association.
In 2010, Phillips co-founded Twickenham Fest, a week-long chamber music festival that takes place in her hometown of Huntsville, Alabama. The festival invites around a dozen young musicians to the North Alabama area to perform free concerts for the public. Phillips co-founded the festival with bassoonist Matthew McDonald, a fellow Huntsville native.[5]
References
- ↑ Louise T. Guinther (December 2015). "Practical Perspective: Soprano Susanna Phillips, who sings Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus at the Met this month, has a very well-ordered outlook on life.". Opera News.
- 1 2 Metropolitan Opera Archives. Phillips, Susanna (Soprano)
- ↑ OperaliaCompetition.org. 2005 Winners.
- ↑ Itzkoff, Dave (21 April 2010). "Alabama Soprano Wins Sills Award". New York Times.
- ↑ Huebner, Michael (2 July 2013). "Alabama-born soprano Susanna Phillips making music in the mountains before return to Huntsville". Alabama Media Group.