Here’s a brief introduction to the British mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, who performs at the 2024 BBC Proms on Thursday 25 July and who’s earned an enviable reputation for her captivating performances across a wide range of operatic roles.
Who is Alice Coote?
A British mezzo-soprano who has graced opera stages the world over, Alice Coote has won recognition for her superb performances across a broad range of opera styles and roles. She sings beautifully across a wide range of repertoire, from early and Baroque music to contemporary pieces. She’s also captivated in a range of both male and female roles.
Two more key moments in Alice Coote’s life: she has had a work composed specifically for her, the song cycle The Voice of Desire by British composer Judith Weir. And… she was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to music in Queen Elizabeth’s 2018 Birthday honours list.
Here she is in action during a performance of George Frideric Handel‘s opera Xerxes.
What’s Alice Coote performing at the Proms?
She’ll be at Prom 9 on Thursday 25 July, singing Gustav Mahler’s deeply emotional song cycle Kindertotenlieder in company with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ryan Wigglesworth. Those forces will also give us performances of Johannes Brahms‘s emotive and enigmatic Symphony No. 3 in F major and Arnold Schoenberg‘s passionate Expressionist masterpiece Verklärte Nacht.
Tell us more about Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder
The Kindertotenlieder are a five-part song cycle by Mahler. The songs themselves are musical settings of five poems by the German poet Friedrich Rückert, also the source of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder song cycle.
Rückert actually set down more than 400 Kindertodtenlieder after the tragic death of two of his children from scarlet fever. Mahler selected five of them, scoring them for soloist (typically a baritone or mezzo-soprano), accompanied by a chamber orchestra.
And what is a mezzo-soprano?
We’ve mentioned that Alice Coote is a mezzo-soprano. But what does that mean and how does it relate to the (probably more familiar) soprano?
‘Mezzo-soprano’ takes its name from the Italian word for ‘half’ as the typical range of a mezzo-soprano singer sits halfway between those of the (higher) soprano and (lower) contralto ranges. Other famous mezzos besides Alice Coote include then Scottish singer Karen Cargill, and the American mezzo and former BBC Music Magazine Personality of the Year Jamie Barton. She’s also at the 2024 BBC Proms, by the way – performing Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, which we mentioned earlier.
More famous mezzos from past and present include Dame Janet Baker, Cecilia Bartolli, Anne Sofie von Otter and the great German singer Christa Ludwig.