Susan Bullock shines in acclaimed world premiere of The Galloping Cure
20/8/2026
Last week, Mizzy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s The Galloping Cure hit The Edinburgh International Festival for its world premiere — a gripping, darkly funny and deeply affecting new opera confronting America’s opioid crisis head-on.
With “bite and black comedy” (The Guardian), the opera features the inimitable Susan Bullock as Ivona Kowalski, in Tom Morris’s striking production.
Next stop: NorrlandsOperan in September 2026.
A powerful and painfully relevant new addition to the operatic repertory. Read Susan’s press below:
British soprano Susan Bullock gives a standout performance as grumpy old Ivona, a patient briefly transported by the cure into a kind of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. — The Observer, August 2026
Susan Bullock, on the other hand, has bite in spades as curmudgeonly senior Ivona Kowalski. — The Guardian, August 2026
Disaster looms, especially in the horrific treatment of an old woman (an outstanding Susan Bullock), whom Lucky tricks into being dismembered for her body parts. — The Telegraph, August 2026
Such black humour is potent throughout the opera. Indeed, Susan Bullock, playing a woebegone old woman, actually manages to elicit audience laughter as she has her eyes, tongue and knees gouged out. — The Times, August 2026
Susan Bullock is a wonderfully curmudgeonly old bat on two sticks who is, initially, not going to be taken in by the Cure, but gives in and flies high above the stage on her horse… Her ecstasy on the horse, her absence of pain, indeed joviality, during the surgery, is infectious.
- The Opera Critic, August 2026
Susan Bullock gave an endearing performance as the elderly Ivona, gamely riding high but then out of funds; in a particularly gruesome scene, donating her eyes, knees and tongue for the cause.
- Bachtrack, August 2026
The only character who feels like a complete person is the aging and disabled Ivona of Susan Bullock
- The British Theatre Guide, August 2026