Allison Cook
Allison Cook
ENO Salome Allison Cooke (c) Catherine Ashmore (7)
Allison cook
ENO Salome Susan Bickley Allison Cooke dancers (c) Catherine Ashmore (2)
Allison Cook
Allison Cook

Allison Cook

Mezzo-soprano
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“A tour de force, brilliantly sung and stunning in its psychological breadth.”

(Opera Magazine)

Allison Cook’s reputation as one of today’s foremost exponents of contemporary and 20th century repertoire has been firmly established through the recent creation of a range of formidable characters including Marie in Wozzeck, the Duchess of Argyll in Powder her Face, Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, Schoenberg’s Erwartung, and Kaija Saariaho’s Emilie. As an artist of unusual versatility and vocal range, this season brings Cook’s most anticipated role debut as Richard Strauss’ Salome in a new production by acclaimed director Adena Jacobs for English National Opera, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. 

Other key appearances in the current season include the world premiere of Casablancas’ Enigma De Lea for Gran Teatre del Liceu, Francesconi’s Quartett at both Teatro alla Scala and Theater Dortmund, Judith for Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos and, with Scottish Opera on tour, Allison reprises her portrayal as ​“the Wife” in Joe Hill Gibbins’ acclaimed production of Greek at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts. 

Allison Cook
Allison Cook

Gallery

Allison Cook
Allison Cook
Allison Cook
Allison Cook
Allison Cook
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Schoenberg: Erwartung (excerpt) © Den Nye Opera
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Francesconi: Quartett (excerpt) © Casa da Musica
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Kaija Saariaho: Émilie (excerpts) © Salzburger Landestheater

“Casablancas’s opera found an excellent interpreter in Allison Cook as Lea, untroubled by the sometimes high tessitura”

(Opera Magazine, May 2019)

“[…] here rendered with intensity by the outstanding mezzo soprano Allison Cook, the very high spiraling vocal writing projected thrillingly, her expertise in contemporary opera evident through her balance of complex vocal lines with effective, alluring stage action.”

(Musical Opinion Quarterly, April – June 2019)

“Allison Cook knew how to understand Casablancas’ music and produced a pure, translucent tone. He composed a character who experiences pain to ecstasy, through struggle and love to the other, expressed in a line of sensual singing on an axis that goes from modal to diatonism. The result was delicious and captivating.”

(Bachtrack, February 2019)

“Mezzo soprano Allison Cook excelled in the demanding role of Lea both in the dramatic aspect as well as in her ease of projection and employing a timbre endowed with an ethereal quality.”

(La Platea, February 2019)

“her lower range had real strength, and her gleaming tone served her music well [as Salome]”

(Opera Magazine, Erica Jeal, December 2018)

“He’s finely matched by Allison Cook – the ENO’s most recent Salome – as his wife/​mother who also doubles as Eddy’s sister and one half of the sphynx. A fine soprano with excellent diction, she manages to make you care in the extended ​‘love’ duets, which is no mean feat. She’s also a lot of fun in any number of comic cameos.”

(Limelight Magazine, December 2018)

“Allison Cook gives a totally committed performance in the title-role, keeping her nerve with steely assurance to sing with great skill and security.”

(Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, September 2018)

“Where she stood out was with the colour and drama of the voice; imperious and enticing in her dealings with Narraboth, desperate and fiery with Jochanaan, cold and forceful with Herod. Her final scene was compellingly delivered, sung with dramatic intelligence and entranced passion”

(Bachtrack, September 2018)

“Allison Cook looks ideally the modern, young Salome this production requires and gives everything she has. A mezzo in what is nominally a soprano role, she sings with unusually dark colours, and a clean, rapier-like top.”

(Financial Times, October 2018)

“She’s a fine vocal actor, immersing herself in the role with admirable commitment and abandon.”

(The Guardian, October 2018)

“Cook is a mesmerising singer-actor who never lacks intensity or intelligence.”

(The Times, October 2018)

“Cook’s light and girlish soprano contrasts nicely with Soar’s sonorous bass, and her alternating lust and disgust is radiantly amplified instrumentally by the orchestra under Martyn Brabbins’s direction.”

(Independent, October 2018)

“Allison Cook, looking impressively cool and gym-toned in figure-hugging, occasionally discarded, costumes, brilliantly emanates Salome’s frigid and repellent sexuality and is heroically athletic.”

(Classical Source, October 2018)

“Allison Cook as Eddy’s wife (and mother) especially touching in her lament for her dead husband, sung stepping over and around his corpse.”

(Bachtrack, February 2018)

“Susan Bullock and Allison Cook gave virtuoso performances in the chameleon-like soprano roles – both singers blurring the lines between humanity and caricature”

(Opera Magazine, October 2017)

“But then there was Allison Cook as Eddy’s wife and (it transpires) mother, singing with a smoky, curdled sensuality that could veer into either brutality or passion.”

(The Spectator, August 2017)

“Allison Cook as Eddy’s real mum and lover whose aria lamenting the death of her abusive husband was matchless”

(Classical Source, August 2017)

“The two soloists fully assume the requirement of writing…it is first of all the astonishing performance of Allison Cook as the Marquise that will be remembered, passing from one hallucination to another at will, with pyrotechnics as much musical as they were psychic.”

(Anaclase, March 2017)

“The Marquise de Merteuil was performed by the mezzo soprano Allison Cook; unmatchable on stage and delivering a vocal performance which proved most convincing.”

(Beckmesser, February 2017)

“Allison Cook [was] spellbinding as Miss Jessel.”

(Opera Magazine, December 2016)

“Allison Cook also gives a tour de force performance. It’s not so much that she portrays the Duchess, rather she reincarnates her. First as a playful sex-goddess, then as a fallen angel. With a final number as gripping as the best bel canto aria.”

(Koen Van Boxem, Tijd, September 2015)

“Allison Cook’s portrayal of the Duchess – a triumph in one of the New York City Opera’s last productions – remains a tour de force, brilliantly sung and stunning in its psychological breadth.”

(George Loomis, Opera Magazine, August 2015)

“Baritone Robin Adams and mezzo Allison Cook are formidable singers and actors. Cook is also the sexiest woman ever seen on an opera stage in a while, to the point that the question of how the performance of this opera could go on without her is inevitable.”

(Federico Monjeau, Clarin, June 2015)
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