Jennifer Johnston
Shirley Thomson
Clare Erskine
“Jennifer Johnston has one of the most generous and beautiful voices in the business”
(Prospect Magazine)
Esteemed mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston is recognised as one of the most important voices of her generation and celebrated for her performances of works by Mahler, Wagner, Britten, Beethoven, Schumann and Elgar among others. She was awarded Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer Award in 2021 in recognition of her “commitment and emotional force” to both performance and education.
Johnston’s formidable reputation as a preeminent interpreter of Mahler is reflected in a 2024/25 season which features his works prominently. Jennifer sings Mahler’s Symphony No.8 with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Klaus Mäkelä, Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under Semyon Bychkov, Bremer Philharmoniker under Marko Letonja, and with London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner; Mahler’s Symphony No.3 with Cleveland Orchestra under Klaus Mäkelä and with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Domingo Hindoyan; Mahler’s Symphony No.2 with Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège under Gergely Madaras; and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra under Juraj Valčuha. Other highlights include Haydn’s Nelson Mass with BBC Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Kazuki Yamada, and Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with Sinfonieorchester Basel under Ivor Bolton.
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On the operatic stage, Jennifer Johnston has enjoyed a close collaboration with Bayerische Staatsoper and returns this season as Brigitta in Simon Stone’s production of Die tote Stadt under Lothar Koenigs. In Munich Johnston has sung over 80 performances including as Mrs Sedley (Peter Grimes), Second Norn (Götterdämmerung), Roßweise (Die Walküre), Floßhilde (Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung), Hedwige (Guillaume Tell) and La Ciesca (Gianni Schicci). Highlights elsewhere have included Johnston’s critically acclaimed Judith (Bluebeard’s Castle) for English National Opera, Juno (Semele) for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Mrs Grose (The Turn of the Screw) and Gaia (Battistelli’s CO2) at Teatro alla Scala, Carmi (Mozart’s La Betulia Liberata) and Leda (Die Liebe Der Danae) at Salzburg Festival, and Dido (Dido and Aeneas) for Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.
In huge demand on the concert platform, Jennifer Johnston has collaborated with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors and enjoys a special relationship with the orchestra of her home town, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, where she has been Artist in Residence and with whom she recorded her first solo recording, A Love Letter to Liverpool (Rubicon Classics). Recent highlights have included Judith (Bluebeard’s Castle) with Oslo Filharmonien under Klaus Mäkelä, Ravel’s Schéhérazade with BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo, Mahler’s Symphony No.8 with Wiener Philharmoniker under Franz Welser-Möst, Bayerisches Staatsorchester under Kirill Petrenko, and with NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under Semyon Bychkov, Jocasta in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex under Sir John Eliot Gardiner with both Berliner Philharmoniker and London Symphony Orchestra, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with Hallé Orchestra under Gergely Madaras, Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo as part of the First Night of the BBC Proms, Schumann’s Faustszenen with Daniel Harding and Gewandhausorchester, and Britten’s Phaedra with Martyn Brabbins and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
A former BBC New Generation Artist, and a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music, Jennifer Johnston has an extensive discography including the Grammy-nominated Vaughan Williams’s Four Last Songs (Albion Records), Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (LSO Live), Wagner’s Die Walküre (Waltraute) with Sir Simon Rattle and Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchester and, Gramophone Awards’ 2022 Recording of the Year, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt from Bayerische Staatsoper.
Gallery
“mezzo Jennifer Johnston delivered cream but forthrightness in equal quantities”
“The lone human voice is that of Jennifer Johnston, still not sufficiently hailed in her own country but clearly in demand throughout the USA and Europe. She never forces the meaning, placing the sound first before warming to life, with an especially gorgeous part to play”
“Jennifer Johnston brings gorgeous tone and immaculate diction to Nietzsche’s Midnight Song”
“With all the lightness of touch that has gone before, the entrance of Jennifer Johnston’s burnished mezzo in the fourth movement adds a due touch of necessary gravity and baleful luminosity. Her impeccable diction and heartfelt, honest singing stays true to Vänskä’s tempi, sounding for all the world as if suspended in the halo of nature’s hallowed halls”
“Two of the four soloists impressed: Jennifer Johnston, who recently stepped in bravely at the last moment to salvage a Duke Bluebeard’s Castle at English National Opera, was always a delight to the ear with her commanding, rich tone and very clear diction”
“Jennifer Johnston found rich layers of colouring for her Maria Aegyptiaca.”
“Johnston, in a long overdue ENO debut, makes an outstanding Judith, carefully matching vocal inflection to Lord’s physical gestures, her tone caressingly beautiful in moments of affection, manipulative or otherwise, but turning from honey to steel in a flash as her demands for Bluebeard’s keys become terrifyingly insistent.”
“Both he and Johnston bring voices of complex colours and ample size to proceedings, flooding the theatre with tone and riding easily over Bartók’s outsize orchestral accompaniment”
“[As Judit] Jennifer Johnston jumped in, a singer of startling force (with a pinging high C)”
“That Johnston was able to sing Judith with such conviction and energy with so little notice is a testament to her artistry. A range of emotions – fear, naivety, force and passion – were all thrillingly evoked, a sense of narrative constantly present in the voice, which thrilled at the top…Quite a way to make a house debut!”
“Jennifer Johnston: warmth, kindness, class. All together: wonderful.”
“Mezzo soprano Jennifer Johnston sounded equally comforting and richly filled the room in ‘O Mensch, Gib Acht’.”
“Jennifer Johnston calmed the troubled waters…her diction was so awesome the ‘sssh’ of ‘O Mensch’ resonated at the back of the auditorium. I felt the pain as she leaned into the falling figure and only the beautiful responses from the violin, principal horn and the oboe’s amazing glissandi could bring us salvation.”
“Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston also delighted the audience with her confident yet refined performance, her interventions bringing legendary sophistication to this difficult opus.”
“the exceptional mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston.”
“The vengeful Juno, Jove’s wife, a role superbly inhabited by Jennifer Johnston…And, displaying impeccable timing, Johnston’s Juno relishes her revenge.”
“Joelle Harvey and Jennifer Johnston are ravishing…Both mezzos are outstanding, with Johnston’s formidable hauteur superbly contrasted with Wake-Edwards’ passionate intensity.”
“The drama centres, though, on Semele and her vengeful antagonist, Juno…Jennifer Johnston brings all the requisite authority and technical skill to leave her regal stamp on Jove’s power-dressing consort.”
“Jennifer Johnston’s Juno is so formidable that I wish she had more to sing.”
“Jennifer Johnston makes a scarily imperious Juno.”
“Jennifer Johnston — despite the apparent absence of any directorial input — conveys Juno’s vehement desire for vengeance with commanding focus, delivering the heated recitative with which she makes the drowsy Somnus…with delicious dastardliness.
“Juno (Jennifer Johnston, dressed like a peacock, with Flash Gordon headwear) gurgles with pantomime malice as she plots their downfall with her sidekick Iris…The singing hits the spot throughout — from the moments when Johnston reveals her full vocal majesty to the grumpy, half-mumbled aria of the sleep-god Somnus.”
“By far the strongest of the soloists was mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston, who sang with extraordinary vitality.”
“Mezzo Jennifer Johnston… was on commanding form”
‘The magnificent mezzo Jennifer Johnston.”
“You couldn’t have asked for more from the singers. Jennifer Johnston was nothing less than sublime in Urlicht, bringing the audience from the melancholic depth of humanity’s pain and need, in her resonant chest voice, to the radiant hope of everlasting life in her upper register”
“We got mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston, who demonstrated clearly why the piece works brilliantly with a voice with a slightly lower core. Much of the vocal writing is in the part of the voice where a firm and velvety middle register is needed and Johnston’s singing was textually alert and pointed, and both expansive and voluptuous. She was clearly relishing the Wagnerian influences of Chausson’s writing.”
“Some especially lyrical vocal writing is given to the mezzo-soprano, persuasively sung by Jennifer Johnston.”
“Jennifer Johnston’s polished, grave mezzo-soprano was unfailingly musical.”
“Soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston stole the show…Jennifer Johnston’s rendition of the Liber Scriptus and tender Recordare was beautifully done.”
“Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston was fearless in the ‘Liber Scriptus’, her voice ringing out thrillingly, ably accompanied by some sonorous brass playing. Johnston was equally effective in the Recordare, her voice blending superbly with soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha.”
“By contrast, Jennifer Johnston showed the flexibility and intensity that Verdi expected of his mezzo-sopranos. Her duets with Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha shimmered like exquisite jewels.”
“The soloists are all first rate, from judgment-day horn and trombone to world-class mezzo Jennifer Johnston.”
“The standard of orchestral playing was mostly exemplary up until the end of the third movement, but from the moment mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston began singing ‘Urlicht’ with achingly beautiful tone, and scrupulous attention to the text, vocal colours, and dynamics, the entire performance shifted up a gear, and remained on an exalted level until its shattering close… this hugely talented mezzo from Liverpool possesses a voice of rare quality — richly bronzed, and even throughout its range. Her finely poised, pitch-perfect interpretation of ‘Urlicht’ held the packed audience in thrall.”
“ ‘Urlicht’ can sometimes — possibly more often than not — leave me rather cold in many live performances. Not here. The mezzo Jennifer Johnston was spellbinding — again almost stereophonic in that way in which a halo of rich sound seemed to surround her, most of it her own magnificent voice like a crown wrapped in gold and velvet.”
“Jennifer Johnston, breath taking, made Nietzsche’s text sparkle with a perfectly controlled voice and a diction that would make the most finicky linguists blush.”
“In the fourth movement, Jennifer Johnston, placed in the middle of the first violins, lives up to the preceding pages. Her dark timbre, without the show being closed, is perfect, the noble vocals, the power and the legato serve the text best. Magnificent.”
“A fierce, big-hearted and atmospheric tribute to Johnston’s home city, celebrated in rewardingly unsoupy arrangements of popular, romantic, traditional and Beatles songs — Johnston handles them all with rich colours, elegance and feeling…I have no claims on Liverpool, this disc made me wish I had.”
“A seamless musical panorama, exquisitely sung throughout. A beauty.”
