Susanna Phillips Sets NYC, Chicago Performances for 2013-14

Soprano Susanna Phillips - winner of the Metropolitan Opera's Beverly Sills Artist Award in 2010 - is a singer who "demonstrates rare stylistic fluency, canny pathos and dynamic finesse," according to the Financial Times, which added: "Susanna Phillips - remember the name." The Alabama-born soprano has a higher profile than ever during 2013-14, including her sixth consecutive season at the Metropolitan Opera. Phillips starts her Met season tonight, portraying Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte under the baton of music director James Levine in his long-awaited return to the podium. The Dallas Morning News declared her to be "a glorious Fiordiligi, her soprano honeyed and agile." This Così runs until October 5, with a return in the spring; the final performance, onApril 26, will be transmitted to audiences worldwide in the Met's ever-popular Live in HD series. Phillips will also sing the role of Rosalinde in a new staging of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus by two-time Tony Award-winner Jeremy Sams as part of the Met's New Year's Eve gala, with performances until February 22. At the Met again in April, she plays Musetta in Puccini's La bohème, reprising the role in which she made her house debut in 2008. After a recent Met performance, the New York Times said: "Phillips sparkled as the sassy Musetta, her bright, nimble soprano tinged with a coquettish flair." The April 5 La bohème will be her first Live in HD broadcast of the season. Phillips has been praised by the Aspen Times for her "heart-tugging phrasing" in the role of Ellen Orford in Britten's Peter Grimes; she takes up the role again in a concert performance of Peter Grimes with David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony, in Missouri and at Carnegie Hall on the composer's 100th birthday (Nov 22).

Last year, Phillips was noted for her "melting lyricism" in a Chicago Tribune review of her performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia. The soprano's 2013-14 orchestral engagements include Villa-Lobos'sBachianas Brasileiras No. 5 and Fauré's Requiem with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin (March 13-15). She solos in the Fauré Requiem again with Charles Dutoit and the San Francisco Symphony (May 29-30). Other performances with orchestra include Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Jacksonville Symphony (Oct 25) and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Milwaukee Symphony (March 21-23), as well as the premiere of Wayne Oquin's A Backward Glance Over Travel'd Roads under the baton of the composer at Texas State University in San Marcos (March 6).

On the recital stage, Phillips is joined by bass-baritone Eric Owens at Chicago's Symphony Center for a special chamber-music event of Schubert lieder (May 11). And she partners with violist Paul Neubauer and pianistAnne-Marie McDermott for performances in Richmond, Virginia (Oct 6), Cleveland (Oct 15) and Boston (March 2). Phillips also performs a benefit recital for Chicago's Bach Week Festival, joined in Bach and Schubert by members of the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera Chicago (Oct 13). The Washington Post extolled the soprano's way with Bach, noting her "gorgeous, well-supported clarity, shining... limpid."

Phillips will round out her season in August with the fifth consecutive year of Twickenham Fest, the chamber music festival she co-founded and co-produces in her hometown of Huntsville, Alabama. The Birmingham Newsrecognized in a five-star review, "Twickenham Fest is well on its way to becoming a driving force in classical music in Alabama."

Susanna Phillips 2013-14 engagements

Sep 24 & 28; Oct 2 & 5
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera / James Levine
Mozart: Così fan tutte (Fiordiligi)

Oct 6
Richmond, VA
Camp Concert Hall, Booker Hall of Music
Concert with Paul Neubauer (viola) and Anne-Marie McDermott (piano)

Oct 13
Chicago, IL
Anderson Chapel, North Park University
Benefit Concert for the 2014 Bach Week Festival

Oct 15
Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Chamber Music Society
Concert with Paul Neubauer (viola) and Anne-Marie McDermott (piano)

Oct 25
Jacksonville, FL
Jacksonville Symphony / Ward Stare
Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915

Nov 22
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall
Britten: Peter Grimes (Ellen Orford)
St. Louis Symphony / David Robertson

Dec 31 (New Year's Eve gala)

Jan 4, 7, 11, 15, 18; Feb 3, 5, 8, 11, 13, 15, 20 & 22, 2014
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera / Ádám Fischer
Strauss: Die Fledermaus (Rosalinde) - new production

March 2

Boston, MA

Gardner Museum

Concert with Paul Neubauer (viola) and Anne-Marie McDermott (piano)

March 6

San Marcos, TX

Texas State University

Juilliard Joins Texas State

Wayne Oquin: A Backward Glance Over Travel'd Roads (premiere)

Wayne Oquin, conductor

March 13-15
Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Fauré: Requiem

March 21-23

Milwaukee, WI

Milwaukee Symphony / Edo de Waart

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9

April 2 & 5*
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera
Puccini: La Bohème (Musetta)
* The Met: Live in HD transmission

April 23 & 26*
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera
Mozart: Così fan tutte (Fiordiligi)
* The Met: Live in HD transmission

May 11

Chicago, IL

Symphony Center

Recital with bass-baritone Eric Owens

May 29 & 30

San Francisco, CA

San Francisco Symphony / Charles Dutoit

Fauré: Requiem

June 15, 18, 20, 23, & 26

Nishinomiya, Japan

Hyogo Performing Arts Center

Mozart: Così fan tutte (Fiordiligi)

August

Huntsville, AL

Twickenham Fest