Susan Gritton

 Born: August 31, 1965 - Reigate, England

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

In 1994 Susan Gritton made her solo recital debut at the Wigmore Hall with Eugene Asti where she has also appeared with Graham Johnson in the International Songmakers series. She appears regularly in recital throughout Britain, including Lichfield, Arundel, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Harrogate and City of London Festivals, the Purcell Room and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Her concert experience is extensive, including performances at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus Vienna, and Philharmonie Berlin, at the Edinburgh Festival, Istanbul Festival and the Salzburg Mozartwoche. She has worked with many renowned conductors including John Eliot Gardiner, Riccardo Chailly, Neeme Järvi, Sir Colin Davis, Mikhail Pletnev, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Kent Nagano and Bernard Haitink. In 1996 she made three appearances at the B.B.C. Promenade Concerts with Richard Hickox, René Jacobs and Trevor Pinnock.

Susan Gritton’s operatic roles have included Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for Glyndebourne Festival and Touring Operas; Governess (Turn of the Screw) and Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia) under Steuart Bedford at Snape Maltings; Belinda (Dido and Aeneas) at the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin; Fulvia in Georg Frideric Handel’s Ezio with The King’s Consort at the Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris; Marzelline (Fidelio) with the Rome Opera; First Niece (Peter Grimes) under Pappano for La Monnaie, Brussels.

Recent engagements include the roles of Thalie and Clarine (Platee), Tiny (<>) and Bird (Pilgrim’s Progress) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the roles of Atalanta (Xerxes), Caroline (The Fairy Queen), Constance (Dialogues des Carmelites) and Xenia (Boris Godunov) for the English National Opera. This season (2000) she joins the English National Opera as a Company Principal where her roles include Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Drusilla (L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Nannetta (Falstaff). Future operatic engagements include Marenka (The Bartered Bride) and Euridice (Orfeo) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) and Romilda (Xerxes) at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich.

Susan Gritton's extensive discography includes the Purcell/Benjamin Britten arrangements with Graham Johnson for Hyperion, Gorecki’s Symphony No.3 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Tring, Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring with Steuart Bedford and Gustav Holst songs for Collins Classics, Antonio Vivaldi’s Ottone in Villai with Hickox for Chandos, G.F. Handel’s Messiah and Solomon, and Beethoven’s Vestas Feuer for Deutsche Grammophon. With The King’s Consort she has recorded several discs of Purcell songs, A. Vivaldi Sacred Music and G.F. Handel’s Deborah and Occasional Oratorio for Hyperion Records. She recently made her recital debut recording of works by Fanny Mendelssohn (Hensel) for Hyperion and the title role in Theodora with Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort for Deutsche Grammophon.