Monday, January 03, 2011

Susanna Phillips, Soprano


*Recipient of the Beverly Sills Artist Award 2010

*In Concert with Mississippi Opera and The Mississippi Chorus on January 14, 2011

Alabama native Susanna Phillips has attracted special recognition for a voice of striking beauty and sophistication. Recipient of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2010 Beverly Sills Artist Award, she appears at the Met this season as Pamina in Julie Taymor’s celebrated production of The Magic Flute, and as Musetta in La bohème, the role with which she made her debut in 2008. She also portrays Musetta on the Met’s Japan tour in June in a cast that includes Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja. This past summer she was a featured artist in the Met’s Summer Recital Series in Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park, and a resident artist at the Marlboro Music Festival.

Susanna Phillips begins her 2010/11 season as Euridice in Minnesota Opera’s Orfeo ed Euridice with David Daniels, under Harry Bicket, before her Metropolitan Opera engagements. Additionally in opera she performs her first staged Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Birmingham, and sings Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Boston Lyric Opera. Concert highlights include the Marilyn Horne Foundation gala at Carnegie Hall, and a solo recital in Chicago.

Last season Susanna Phillips returned to the Met as Pamina with conductor Bernard Labadie. An alumnus of The Juilliard School, she made her New York solo recital debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall as recipient of the Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital Award. Following her Baltimore Symphony debut under Marin Alsop, the Baltimore Sun proclaimed, “She’s the real deal.” Susanna Phillips also appeared with the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore, and with Opera Birmingham as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro. In May she garnered rave reviews for her debut at the Fort Worth Opera Festival as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni.

In the banner year of 2005, Susanna Phillips was the winner of four of the world's leading vocal competitions - Operalia (both First Place and the Audience Prize), the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the MacAllister Awards and the George London Foundation. She completed the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2007.

Since making her Santa Fe Opera debut as Pamina in the summer of 2006, Susanna Phillips has returned to Santa Fe in a trio of Mozart operas: as Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. Recent seasons have brought significant operatic debuts, including Mozart’s Countess with the Dallas Opera, Donna Anna with Boston Lyric Opera and her first Violetta with Opera Birmingham. She performed the notoriously difficult role of Elmira – to great acclaim - in a Tim Albery production of Reinhard Keiser's The Fortunes of King Croesus in her debut with Minnesota Opera conducted by Harry Bicket. As a participant in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, she sang Diana in a new Robert Carsen production of Iphigenie en Tauride opposite Susan Graham, Juliette in Romeo et Juliette and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. She has sung leading roles at Madison Opera and Utah Opera, and Blanche de la Force in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites at Kentucky Opera.

In recital, Susanna Phillips has appeared at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC under the auspices of the Vocal Arts Society, and at Carnegie Hall with the Marilyn Horne Foundation in New York.

Her continually expanding concert repertoire has been showcased with many different prestigious organizations. She has performed with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic as part of their annual "Composer's Festival" under Alan Gilbert, Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the Chicago Symphony, and Beethoven's Mass in C and Choral Fantasy for her Mostly Mozart Festival debut at Lincoln Center and at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of New York under Kent Tritle. She has also sung Dvorak's Stabat Mater with the Santa Fe Symphony, Brahms' Deutsches Requiem with the Santa Barbara Symphony, and appeared opposite baritone Wolfgang Holzmair in Wolf's Spanisches Liederbuch at New York's Weill Recital Hall. Other recent concert and oratorio engagements include Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mahler's Fourth Symphony, Mozart's Coronation Mass, the Fauré and Mozart Requiems, and Handel's Messiah. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with Skitch Henderson and Rob Fisher with the New York Pops.

Susanna Phillips is a winner of the Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition, and was awarded grants from the Santa Fe Opera and the Sullivan Foundation. Additionally, she was the first prize winner of the American Opera Society Competition and the Musicians Club of Women in Chicago.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1981 and raised in Huntsville, Susanna Phillips is grateful for the ongoing support of her community in her career. She sang Strauss' Vier Letzte Lieder and her first performances of the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor in a concert version with the Huntsville Symphony, and she returns frequently to her native state for recitals and orchestral appearances. Over 400 people traveled from Huntsville to New York City in December 2008 for her Metropolitan Opera debut as Musetta in La bohème.

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