“An actor-singer who can raise the dramatic heat as soon as she enters
the stage” (Opera Now), “that most questing, resourceful and intelligent
of sopranos” (Daily Telegraph), British soprano Claire Booth has been
widely acclaimed for her “radiant, rapturous, wonderfully nuanced
performances” and voice of “piercing purity [and] luscious richness”
(The Scotsman). She is renowned for her breadth of repertoire, and for
the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and
concert platform, with a versatility that encompasses repertoire spanning
from Monteverdi and Handel, through Rossini, Berg and Britten, to a
fearless commitment to the music of the present day.
Booth’s plans for 2022 and beyond include a residency at Britten Pears,
working on the creation of a jazz rendition of Schumann’s song cycle
Frauenliebe und Leben with Alisdair Hogarth and Jason Rebello, and
performances with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (world premiere of
Emily Howard’s Elliptics), Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall (including
a new work by Julian Anderson), Aurora Orchestra (Britten’s Les
Illuminations at Saffron Hall and Southbank Centre). Following her
performances of Irene in Vivaldi’s Bajazet, directed by Adele Thomas at
the Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre, Booth was invited by Thomas
to perform in a semi-staged project at the 2023 London Handel Festival,
conducted by Laurence Cummings.
Engagements from recent seasons include the title role in Handel’s
Berenice for the Royal Opera House’s first production of the opera since
its 1737 Covent Garden premiere, Nitocris in Handel’s Belshazzar for
the Grange Festival, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Scottish Chamber
Orchestra, Vivier’s Lonely Child with Ilan Volkov and the London
Sinfonietta, critically acclaimed recordings of songs by Mussorgsky,
Grieg and Percy Grainger, Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with the City
of Birmingham Symphony at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, George
Benjamin’s A Mind of Winter with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the
world premiere of Alex Woolf’s A Feast in the Time of Plague for
Grange Park Opera, and numerous regular collaborations with the Nash
Ensemble at Aldeburgh Festival.
She gained notable critical acclaim as “the stunning voice of operatic
isolation” for a series of “viscerally powerful” (The Times)
performances of La Voix Humaine; following a streamed performance
for Grange Park Opera and a video performance specially recorded
under lockdown conditions for Welsh National Opera, which earned her
Best Actress at the Welsh Theatre Awards, she brought Poulenc’s solo
tour-de-force in a triumphant return to London’s Wigmore Hall, with
Opera Today praising her “thorough assimilation of both text and music
and the intelligence of her delivery. Her intonation is flawless, and her
diction perfectly clear […] it is the very unvarnished quality, an honesty
of expression, that is perhaps her greatest asset. Such is her portrayal
that one watched mesmerised by something excruciatingly real…”
While still a student at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama,
Booth came to international attention performing the world premiere of
Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Io Passion at the Bregenz and Aldeburgh
Festivals, and creating the role of Pakriti in Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner
Dream in Pierre Audi’s production for the Netherlands Opera.
Subsequent roles have included Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and
Elcia in Mose in Egitto for Welsh National Opera, Janacek’s Cunning
Little Vixen for Garsington Opera, Romilda in Handel’s Serse for the
Early Opera Company, Dorinda in Handel’s Orlando and Ellida in Craig
Armstrong’s The Lady from the Sea for Scottish Opera, Nora in
Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea for English National Opera, Adele
(Le Comte Ory) for Chelsea Opera Group, Despina for Opera Nantes-
Angers, and solo performances at the Royal Opera House Covent
Garden of both Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments and Georg Friedrich Haas’
Atthis.
Booth’s wide-ranging concert appearances have included Britten’s Les
Illuminations with the BBC Scottish Symphony, Schoenberg’s Pierrot
Lunaire with the Psappha Ensemble, Anne Trulove in Stravinsky’s The
Rake’s Progress with the City of Birmingham Symphony, Miranda in
Thomas Ades’ The Tempest with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw
Orchestra Amsterdam, and Mrs Foran in Turnage’s The Silver Tassie
with the BBC Symphony. Booth’s two decades of collaboration with the
late Oliver Knussen included her world premieres of his Requiem:
Songs for Sue with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and O Hototogisu!
with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and she has given
over 60 world premieres of compositions by composers as diverse as
Elliott Carter, Tansy Davies, Ryan Wigglesworth, Mark-Antony
Turnage, Charlotte Bray and Unsuk Chin, and built close associations
with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Proms, the London
Sinfonietta and Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Aldeburgh and
Holland Festivals, as well as working with prestigious ensembles
worldwide including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Deutsches
Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the
London and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestras.
For more than a decade she has collaborated with video director Netia
Jones to produce a series of critically acclaimed productions, including
her performances of Max in Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are and
Rhoda in his Higglety, Piggelty, Pop! which toured from the Aldeburgh
Festival via the Swedish Radio Symphony and the Los Angeles
Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, to the Barbican’s own 60th
birthday celebrations for the composer. She has worked with conductors
including Edward Gardner, Carlo Rizzi, Pierre Boulez, Simone Young,
Marcus Stenz, Yannick Nezet-Seguin and Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, and
appeared in recital at include the Aldeburgh, Lucerne and Edinburgh
Festivals, at the Wigmore Hall with the Nash Ensemble, Aurora
Orchestra and Knussen Chamber Orchestra, and her regular accompanist
Christopher Glynn.
Booth’s diverse discography includes Grainger Folksongs and Grieg
lieder (hailed as BBC’s Disc of the Month in January 2020), with
Christopher Glynn for Avie Records, Wigglesworth’s Augenlieder with
the Hallé, Lucia in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia for Decca, and the
melodies of Debussy and Faure with Andrew Matthew’s Owen (CD of
the Year 2019 for Classical Source). Other recordings include John
Eccles’ The Judgement of Paris with Christian Curnyn’s Early Opera
Company and works by Webern, Knussen, Alexander Goehr, Jonathan
Dove and Augusta Read Thomas. ‘Unorthodox Music’, a survey of
Mussorgsky songs and piano solos with Christopher Glynn was released
in Autumn 2021. Booth can also be found as a course director on the
Contemporary Performance course at the Britten Pears School in
Aldeburgh, and enjoys a burgeoning career as a radio presenter and
regular contributor to BBC Radio 3’s Inside Music and Record Review
programmes.
