Claire Booth

Soprano Claire Booth, a native of Yorkshire, completed her degree in history at Oxford while also studying voice at the Guildhall School of Music and gaining her first stage experience at the National Opera. She was soon engaged by Scottish Opera in Glasgow, where she sang such roles as Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Oscar in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and Anne Truelove in The Rake’s Progress by Stravinsky. Along with the traditional repertoire, Claire Booth was also active in bringing many contemporary works and new scores to performance. For example, she sang the world premiere of Oliver Knussen’s Requiem: Songs for Sue and was involved in the premieres of Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream at Netherlands Opera (2007) and of Harrison Birtwistle’s The Io Passion at the Aldeburgh Festival (2004). She is also an acclaimed interpreter of such works as The Death of Klinghoffer by John Adams, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Knussen’s Whitman Settings, The Tempest by Adès, and Britten’s Les Illuminations. In the concert hall, Claire Booth has collaborated with the BBC Symphony and the Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as with the London Sinfonietta and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons recently invited her to perform as soloist in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. Claire Booth has also been a guest artist at the BBC Proms, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona. She has appeared as a song recitalist at London’s Wigmore Hall, at the Cheltenham Festival, and in the Park Lane Group Series at the Purcell Room. 

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on September 6, 2003 in Luciano Berio’s O King and Pierrot lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg, under the baton of Pierre Boulez.

April 2009