A wide and varied early career has taken soprano Emma Bell to Teatro alla Scala as Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress), Elettra (Idomeneo) and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), to the Metropolitan Opera as Contessa Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro) and Donna Elvira, and to Teatro Real Madrid, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, The Dallas Opera and Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. In more recent seasons she has further made a number of important house debuts including at Bayerische Staatsoper as Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) under Kirill Petrenko, at Deutsche Oper Berlin as both Elisabeth and Venus (Tannhäuser) under Sebastian Weigle, at Opernhaus Zürich as Leonore (Fidelio) under Markus Poschner, at Staatsoper Hamburg as Elsa (Lohengrin) under Simone Young and most recently at the Osterfestspiele Salzburg as Venus in Romeo Castellucci’s staging of Tannhäuser under the baton of Andris Nelsons.
On the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Bell has received praise as Eva, Madame Lidoine (Dialogues des Carmélites) and Elisabeth and her return to the stage of the Glyndebourne Festival as the title role in Keith Warner’s celebrated production of Vanessa was met with critical acclaim, The Guardian writing, “Bell gives one of her finest performances to date, beautifully acted, her voice soaring with elation and anguish”. Other recent role debuts include Sieglinde (Die Walküre) in Richard Jones’ Ring Cycle for English National Opera conducted by Martyn Brabbins, Elisabeth at Bayerische Staatsoper under Simone Young, Strauss’ Arabella at Oper Köln, Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) at Teatro la Fenice under the baton of Juraj Valcuha and the Foreign Princess (Rusalka) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden conducted by Semyon Bychkov.
Photo credit Paul Foster Williams