Monica Groop, Mezzo-soprano

Biography

Finnish mezzo-soprano Monica Groop´s wide-ranging career is based upon repertoire of great music adventurousness. Specialties in non-mainstream music and standard fare have enabled this artist to appear in concert and operatic roles across the world. Her repertory is a rich and varied mixture of Baroque, solid classical repertoire and modern masters.

Monica Groop has performed with many of the major opera companies and opera festivals around the world such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Welsh National Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Cologne, Frankfurt, Salzburg Festival, Los Angeles, New York City Opera, Santa Fé Opera Festival, Amsterdam, Aix en Provence, Opera Garnier and Opera Comique in Paris, Toulouse, Geneva, Montreal, Genua, Naples, Rome, Teatro Real and Teatro Zarzuela in Madrid, Royal Opera House Stockholm, Danish National Opera Aarhus as well as the Savonlinna Opera Festival and the Finnish National Opera.

Monica Groop made her professional operatic debut as Charlotte in Jules Massenet´s Werther at the Finnish National Opera in 1987. This was soon followed by other roles such as Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Olga in Eugen Onegin and Flora in La Traviata. Her international career took a big leap forward after the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1989, where she reached the final alongside Bryn Terfel, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Hillevi Martinpelto. This success resulted in her first important international opera engagement as Dorabella in Naples in 1990, a production conducted by the famous violinist Salvatore Accardo and a cast including Cecilia Bartoli as Despina and Rolando Panerai as Don Alfonso. The real operatic breakthrough, however, took place in 1991, when she sang Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Aix-en-Provence festival and won wide international recognition. In 1991 she also made her debut at the Covent Garden in the roles of Waltraute and Wellgunde in a Ring-production by Götz Friedrich conducted by Bernard Haitink. She later returned to the Covent Garden as Varvara in Katá Kabanová (1994), Cherubino (1998) and Octavian (2000). She scored a great success as Der Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Opéra Comique (1993) in a production conducted by Armin Jordan.

One of the absolute highlights of Monica Groop was singing Zerlina at the re-opening of Opéra Palais Garnier (1996) under Sir Georg Solti in a concert performance of Don Giovanni. This production was repeated at the Royal Festival Hall in London and recorded for DECCA with Bryn Terfel (Don Giovanni), Renée Fleming (Donna Anna) and Ann Murray (Donna Elvira) in the main roles. This was to be the last operatic recording by Sir Georg Solti. Another highlight of her career took place at the legendary Glyndebourne Opera Festival as Sesto in Nicholas Hytner’s production of La clemenza di Tito. She thus followed the path of the few famous countrymen Aulikki Rautawaara (in the 1940-ies), Kim Borg (50-ies) and Tom Krause (60-ies), who had performed at Glyndebourne. The role of Sesto has later become one of her trademarks.

She scored a great success as Zenobia in Handel’s opera Radamisto when she returned for the Salzburg Festival in 2002. Monica Groop had a guest contract with the Bayerische Staatsoper between 1997 and 2000, an engagement that included a new production of Le nozze di Figaro directed by Dieter Dorn and conducted by Peter Schneider and Zubin Mehta. Another milestone was the role of Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at the Los Angeles Opera in 1995 in a controversial but highly acclaimed production by Peter Sellars, and conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The New York Times wrote of the performance that "Monica Groop was a subtle, affecting Mélisande. The voice was lovely, graceful and intelligently used". The successful collaboration with Peter Sellars then continued as Mélisande at the Amsterdam Opera (conducted by Mark Elder) and later with the two great operas by Kaija Saariaho, L´amour de loin in Santa Fé (2002) and Helsinki (2004) as well as Adriana Mater in Helsinki (2008) and Santa Fé (2008). The production of L’amour de loin was recorded for DVD by Deutsche Gramophone with Dawn Upshaw, Gerald Finley and Monica Groop in the cast and Esa-Pekka Salonen as the conductor.

Her operatic roles include among others Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte), Sesto (La clemenza di Tito), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Cyrus (Belshazzar), Ramiro (La Finta Giardiniera), Ruggiero (Alcina), Zenobia (Radamisto), Carmen, Oktavian (Der Rosenkavalier), Der Komponist (Ariadne auf Naxos), Charlotte (Werther), Mélisande (Pelleas et Mélisande), Ascanio (Benvenuto Cellini), Marguerithe (La Damnation de Faust), Pierotto (Linda di Chamounix), Orfeo (Orfeo ed Euridice), Dido (Dido and Aeneas), Varvara (Kátá Kabanova), Olga (Eugen Onegin), Lucretia (The rape of Lucretia), Flora (La Traviata), Pélérin (L´amour de loin), Anna (Daddy´s girl) and Adriana (Adriana Mater).

(from monicagroop.com)