Laura Claycomb Soprano

Native Texan Laura Claycomb excels in adventurous repertoire, ranging from baroque music and belcanto masterpieces to 20th century and contemporary compositions at the major opera and concert venues. Her delicacy, refinement and theatricality in high-flying repertoire make her one of the foremost lyric coloraturas of her generation. Her signature roles have taken her around the world to the major opera houses and orchestras. She made her debut at La Scala in 1998 singing the title role in Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and at the Salzburg Festival in 1997 as Amanda in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellars. She recorded Le Grand Macabre with Salonen on Sony, Sir John in Love of Vaughan-Williams with Richard Hickox on Chandos, Händel's Arcadian duets with French baroque conductor Emmanuëlle Haim on EMI/Virgin, and La Partenza, featuring Laura in bel canto chamber songs, duets and ensembles with pianist David Harper and various artists on the Opera Rara label. She also recorded the soloist in Mahler's Fourth Symphony with San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson-Thomas.

Laura Claycomb made her debut in Europe as Giulietta in Bellini's I Capuleti e I Montecchi (Bruno Campanella/Robert Carsen) at the Grand Théâtre de Geneve in 1994. Subsequently she had overwhelming successes as Giulietta at the Paris Opera, at the Los Angeles Opera and at the Munich Radio Orchestra.

She sang Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto to great acclaim in Houston, Toronto, Paris (Bastille), Lausanne, Tel Aviv, Santiago de Chile, Bilbao and Salerno. She was Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at the New Israeli Opera with David Parry in a David Pountney production and at Houston Grand Opera in a James Robinson production with Patrick Summers.

Laura Claycomb also portrayed a moving Cleopatra in Händel's Giulio Cesare at Houston Grand Opera with Patrick Summers, in Montpellier with Christophe Rousset, with Roy Goodman at the Drottningholm Festival, and with Emmanuelle Haïm at the Tuscan Festival. Her Morgana in Händel's Alcina at English National Opera with Hickox and McVicar was an outstanding success.

Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos has become a vehicle for her voice and acting talents after her groundbreaking debut at San Francisco Opera (Jun Maerkl/John Cox), her appearance in concert at the Richard-Strauss-Festspiele (Ulf Schirmer) and at Los Angeles Opera (Laurent Pillot/Bill Friedkin).

Other significant opera roles include Ophelie in Thomas' Hamlet (Trieste's Teatro Verdi with Jean-Yves Ossonce/Nicholas Joel), Comtesse Adèle in Rossini's Le comte Ory (Lausanne with Evalino Pidò/Denis Kreif), Marie in Donizetti's La fille du régiment (San Francisco Opera, Turin's Teatro Regio, Rome Opera and, last season, in Houston), Ginevra in Händel's Ariodante (Paris Opera with Mark Minkowski and Munich Opera with Harry Bicket), Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide (Opera Pacific with John Demain/Jeffrey Lenz), Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier (Spoleto Festival with Hickox/Keith Warner), Konstanze in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Staatsoper Berlin with Sebastian Weigle and Vlaamse Opera with Arnold Östman), Olympia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Vlaamse Opera with Jean-Claude Casadesus/David McVicar), Ilia in Idomeneo at Houston Grand Opera with Patrick Summers, Philine in Mignon at Toulouse Opera, the title-role in Semele at Vlaamse Opera with Michael Hofstetter, Queen Wealtheow in the world premiere of Elliot Goldenthal’s Grendel with Los Angeles Opera in Los Angeles and at the Lincoln Center, New York, and Anne Trulove , which she sang in Robert LePage’s new production of The Rake’s Progress at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels, at the Opera de Lyon and in Olivier Py’s new production for the Opera de Paris at the Bastille. She also sang Polissena in the new production of Radamisto in Santa Fe, Titania in A Midsummer Nights Dream in Houston and with the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto, Romilda in Xerxes with Houston Grand Opera.

Laura Claycomb also has a busy concert schedule with premier orchestras and conductors, as well as a burgeoning recital career. She sang the world premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Five Images after Sappho, with Salonen and the LA Philharmonic, at the Ojai Festival, with the London Sinfonietta at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and at Carnegie Hall with Ensemble Sospeso. She also sang the Angel in Debussy's Le Martyre de St. Sebastien with Salonen and with the Stockholm Radio Orchestra in Stockholm, under Richard Hickox. She has sung in concert with the Ensemble Modern in Japan and with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under Teodor Currentzis in Moscow. Also in Moscow she sang the title-role in a concert performance of Lucia di Lammermoor under Patrick Summers, and at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples she sang the Fauré Requiem under Jeffrey Tate. With the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra she sang Maher’s Symphony No. 2 under Michael Tilson Thomas in San Francisco, Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall..

Laura Claycomb made her debut at the Blossom Festival with the Cleveland Orchestra and Frans Welser-Möst in Carmina Burana, which she also sang at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Fruhbeck de Burgos and in Cincinnati with the Cincinnati Symphony under Paavo Järvi;. She returned in the Messiah in Severance Hall and subsequently sang Le Rossignol with the orchestra and Pierre Boulez. She also sang Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis under Yannick Nezet-Seguin with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Ode to St. Cecilia with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Krenek’s Die Nachtigall with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas and Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberg with the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. With the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas - after very successful concerts in repertoire by Schoenberg, Wagner and Toch - she has sung Mahler's Fourth Symphony, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (both issued on CD on the orchestra’s own label), Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Strauss’s Brentano Lieder, and the Brahms Requiem, and she sang French repertoire with the New York Philharmonic under Bramwell Tovey. With the London Symphony Orchestra she sang Mahler's Second Symphony under Andrew Davis, Teresa in Benvenuto Cellini under Sir Colin Davis, released on CD on the LSO Live label, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony under Valery Gergiev, also released on the LSO Live label, and under Richard Hickox Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel, Knoxville, and Carmina Burana, which was released on CD by Chandos

With Richard Hickox she sang Haydn's Creation (Spoleto Festival), Ann Trulove in The Rake's Progress (Barbican Hall), Vaughan-Williams' A Sea Symphony at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the music of Grainger at the BBC Proms, Messiah with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and, with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall,..

She has sung numerous concerts with Emmanuelle Haim in France and at the Aldeburgh Festival in the U.K., performing works such as Il delirio amoroso, Apollo e Dafne, Händel chamber duets, Vivaldi cantatas and she sang concert performances of Il delirio amoroso and Rameau suites with Emmanuelle Haim and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and with the New World Symphony in Miami, and Messiah in Frankfurt and Lille.

With Sir Roger Norrington, Claycomb won accolades on a European concert tour, including a performance at the Proms in London, of Berlioz' Benvenuto Cellini (Teresa) and again with the Stuttgart Radio in Vaughan-Williams' A Sea Symphony. With the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra Claycomb has performed I Capuleti e I Montecchi in concert (Roberto Abbado), Der Schauspieldirektor (Sebastian Weigle) and Ariadne auf Naxos (Ulf Schirmer.) . In Caracas she sang Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra under Abbado, and the Fauré Requiem and Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra.under Yan Pascal Tortelier. She has appeared in recital in San Francisco, San Antonio (Texas), Chicago, London (BBC Voices), Bruges (Concertgebouw), Cortona, Italy (Tuscan Sun Festival), the Theatre de La Monnaie in Brussels, and in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Laura Claycomb’s recordings for Opera Rara include Offenbach arias, Pacini’s Alessandro Nell’Indie, which she also sang in concert in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and La Comtesse in Ambroise Thomas’s La Cour de Celimène.

Engagements in the 2010/11 season include a chamber concert and Gliere’s Concerto for Soprano under Nicolai Znaider, and the four sopranos in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Moscow, Bach’s Lutheran Mass in F with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst, the title-role Lucia di Lammermoor in Pittsburgh, Gilda with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton, and with Dallas Opera, the Fauré Requiem with the Cincinnati Symphony under Paavo Järvi, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with Houston Grand Opera and Mahler Symphonies No. 2 and 4 on tour in Europe with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas.

Laura Claycomb lives in Europe. She trained at Southern Methodist University where she received two bachelors' degrees in Music and Foreign Languages, and at the San Francisco Opera Center where she was an Adler Fellow from 1991 to 1994. Early recognition included a silver medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1994 and the operetta prize at the Belvedere Competition in Vienna in 1992.

2010/11

Date Last Edited: 28th July 2010