Barbara Bonney

Renowned for the silvery radiance of her voice, her intelligence and expressiveness, and her warm, engaging persona, American lyric soprano Barbara Bonney enjoyed a spectacular career of over 30 years as both an opera singer and a recital and concert artist. She is recognised as one of the great Mozart and Richard Strauss singers of her generation, her signature roles including Sophie, Susanna and Pamina, but her stylistic versatility allowed her to draw on a repertoire spanning several centuries. Having retired from public performance, she is now passionate about teaching. Bonney was born in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1956. Gifted with perfect pitch, she began piano lessons at five, but soon switched to the cello, with whose tone she felt a greater affinity. While studying music and German at the University of New Hampshire, she spent a year in Salzburg and won a place at the Mozarteum. In 1979, she joined Darmstadt Opera and made her stage debut as Anna in Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor. She sang many roles as a member of the Darmstadt company and, from 1983, with the Frankfurt Opera. Bonney made her debuts at Covent Garden in 1984, as Sophie, at La Scala in 1985, as Pamina, and at the Met in 1988, as Naiad (Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos). Other major roles included Ilia, Despina and Eurydice (Gluck’s Orfeo). Bonney was equally famed as a Lieder singer, and continued to give recitals, and to appear in orchestral concerts, for some years after retiring from opera, working with the world's finest pianists, orchestras and conductors. Reflecting her range, her extensive and award-winning discography includes Lieder by composers such as Schubert, Strauss and Wolf; sacred works by Bach, Haydn and Mozart; operas from Le nozze di Figaro to Les mamelles de Tirésias; and 20th-century American songs, including André Previn's Sallie Chisum remembers Billy the Kid, composed especially for her. Bonney has acknowledged the support she received from Previn, as well as that of other colleagues such as Simon Rattle and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Now a professor at the Mozarteum, as well as a visiting professor at London's Royal Academy of Music, she devotes her time and expertise to mentoring others. Fluent in several languages, she emphasises the importance of learning and absorbing the text and then engaging with the audience: "That's what it's about. We’re there to tell the story. We're there to connect and communicate."