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The Finnish mezzo-soprano, Monica Groop, is equally comfortable appearing in the world's great opera houses, performing intimate lieder in solo recital, and singing Baroque music with the leading period-instrument ensembles of our time. She has been an international fixture since her London debut at Covent Garden in 1991 in Bernard Haitink's acclaimed Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. In 1987, she made her professional operatic debut with the Finnish National Opera as Charlotte in Massenet's Werther, and was a finalist in the prestigious Cardiff Singer of the World Competition alongside Bryn Terfel and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Monica Groop has recently appeared as Cherubino in W.A. Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Munich State Opera and at Covent Garden, Sesto in W.A. Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito at the Bordeaux Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival, and as Charlotte in Werther at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. In 1994, she starred in the Trevor Nunn production of Janácek’s Katya Kabanova at Covent Garden. In 1995, she came to the Los Angeles Opera as Mélisande in the critically-acclaimed Peter Sellars production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen. She also toured Europe in W.A. Mozart's Cosí fan tutte (as Dorabella) with the period-instrument ensemble La Petite Bande. In 1996, she sang and recorded under Sir Georg Solti in W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni (as Zerlina) for the re-opening of the Opéra Palais Garnier in Paris.
Highly successful performances with conductors Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Franz Brüggen, Bruno Weil, Eric Ericson, and Helmuth Rilling have led critics around the world to single out Monica Groop as one of today's leading interpreters of Baroque music. She also sings Romantic choral repertoire with major international orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Santa Cecilia Academia in Rome, under conductors including Paavo Berglund, Herbert Blomstedt, Myung-Whun Chung, Neeme Järvi, Leif Segerstam and Franz Welser-Möst. An accomplished recitalist, Monica Groop has given solo recitals at New York's Carnegie Hall and London's Wigmore Hall. In honor of the Schubert bicentenary and the Johannes Brahms centenary, she was joined by András Schiff for three J. Brahms/Schubert recitals in Vienna and an all-Schubert recital at the 1997 Lucerne Festival. Monica Groop appears with András Schiff at the Salzburg Festival in 1999. She has already achieved great acclaim in 1999 as Sesto in W.A. Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in southern England.
Monica Groop's staggering number of recordings is a permanent testimony to the variety of her musical interests. In addition to recording with Gerog Solti, her operatic discography includes the title role in first complete recording of Antonio Vivaldi's opera Ottone in Villa with Collegium Musicum 90 under Richard Hickox, the only recording of Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, and period instrument recordings of Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro with La Petite Bande. Other recordings with early music ensembles include: Mendelssohn's Elijah under Philippe Herreweghe and Haydn's Missa in tempore belli with Tafelmusik. Three volumes of her complete Grieg Songs project have already been released as well as two volumes of Sibelius songs in collaboration with Anne Sofie von Otter. She has also recorded discs of Lieder by Schubert and J. Brahms, the complete songs of Allan Petterson, and Franz Kalman's operetta Die Herzogin von Chicago with the Berliner Symphoniker under Richard Bonynge. |
