British soprano Claire Booth receives a flurry of glowing reviews for her performances of Irene, Princess of Tresbisond, in Vivaldi’s thriller opera Bajazet. The new Irish National Opera production (directed by Adele Thomas, and featuring the Irish Baroque Orchestra conducted by Peter Whelan) toured extensively across Ireland in January 2022, and will soon culminate in 6 sold-out performances at the Royal Opera House, Linbury Theatre on 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 and 12 February 2022. For more information on these performances, click here. Bajazet will mark Claire Booth’s return to ROH Linbury Theatre, following her appearance in the title role of Handel’s Berenice in 2019.
“Soprano Claire Booth is superb as the girl-on-the-make Irene — her aria at the end of Act 1 infuses the coloratura vocal inflections with a spoilt rage.” – Independent Ireland
“Crafting a detailed, rigorous and complete performance […] a sublime Claire Booth lights up the stage every time she enters, and [her] singing is utterly spellbinding.” – The Arts Review
“Irish National Opera have assembled an outstanding cast of six singers. It’s tricky stuff with an abundance of high-energy, rapid coloratura arias and meltingly languid largos. British soprano Claire Booth as jilted fiancée Princess Irene oozed ire and pathos in her vocal fireworks.” – The Irish Examiner
“Every member of the cast gets at least one high wire vocal act – most flamboyantly, Claire Booth’s dazzling display of coloratura acrobatics. Hers is the opera’s most famous aria, ‘Sposa, son disprezzata’, as well as the athletic ‘Qual guerriero in campo armato’.” – Journal of Music
As an actor-singer who can “raise the dramatic heat as soon as she enters the stage” (Opera Now), “that most questing, resourceful and intelligent of sopranos” (Daily Telegraph), she has been widely acclaimed for her “radiant, rapturous, wonderfully nuanced performances” and voice of “piercing purity [and] luscious richness” (The Scotsman). She is renowned for her breadth of repertoire, and for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform, with a versatility that encompasses repertoire spanning from Monteverdi and Handel, through Rossini, Berg and Britten, to a fearless commitment to the music of the present day.
Claire’s upcoming engagements include Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Scottish Chamber Orchestra, concerts with the Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall and Aldeburgh Festival (including song cycles by Mark Anthony Turnage and Colin Matthews, and a programme in celebration of composer Alexander Goehr), and with the the London Sinfonietta with Ilan Volkov at the Southbank Centre (Vivier’s Lonely Child). In May 2022, Claire will revive La Voix Humaine at the Bath Festival with Welsh National Opera – her filmed performances over lockdown of Poulenc’s tour-de-force gained notable critical acclaim as “the stunning voice of operatic isolation” (The Times) and Best Actress at the Welsh Theatre Awards.
Photo credit: Sven Arnstein
