Winner of the 1994 Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Prize, Susan Gritton read botany at Oxford and London Universities before taking up a career in singing.
Winner of the 1994 Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Prize, Susan Gritton read botany at Oxford and London Universities before taking up a career in singing.
Her operatic engagements have included Liu (Turandot), Micaela (Carmen), Marenka (The Bartered Bride), Tiny (Paul Bunyan) and Ismene (Mitridate) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) for Opera Australia; Konstanze (Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail), Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Blanche (Dialogues des Carmelites) and the title role of Rodelinda at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) for the Opera de Montreal.
At the Glyndebourne Festival she has sung Miss Wordsworth (Albert Herring) and the title role of Theodora and her many roles at the English National Opera have included Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Pamina (Die Zauberfloete), Fiordiligi and the title role of The Cunning Little Vixen.
Other appearances have included Governess (The Turn of the Screw) at Aldeburgh; Tytania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for Teatro la Fenice, Venice; Countess Madeleine (Capriccio) at Grange Park; Marzelline (Fidelio) for Rome Opera; and Fiordiligi at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.
She has also sung in innovative staged performances of Sibelius’ Luonnotar in London; Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bucher in Rome and Handel’s Messiah in Vienna.
She appears regularly in concert with many of the world’s great orchestras and conductors and her recent engagements have included the Berlin Philharmonic with Rattle and Norrington, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Pappano, the LSO with Harding, the Rotterdam Philharmonic with Bruggen, the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Haitink, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Mackerras, the New York Philharmonic with Sir Colin Davis, L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with Tate, and the Philharmonia with Sir Andrew Davis.
Her extensive discography also includes Brahms’ Requiem; Britten’s The Poet’s Echo, Les Illuminations, and Sechs Holderlin-Fragmente; Handel’s Saul, Solomon, Theodora (title role) and Messiah; Mozart’s Requiem and the roles of Marenka (nominated for a Grammy Award); Elena (Paride ed Elena); Hero (Beatrice et Benedict); Nannetta (Falstaff); Tiny (Paul Bunyan) and Miss Wordsworth (Albert Herring).
In 2010 she made her debut at the Bolshoi Theatre as Donna Anna (Don Giovanni)