Felicity Palmer is one of the most versatile performing artists singing today, equally at home in music as diverse as Handel, Wagner and Berio. She regularly performs throughout the world in opera, concert and recital. Her recent successes include Fricka in The Ring for the Bavarian State Opera; Klytemnestra in Elektra for La Scala, Milan with Maestro Sinopoli (also in concert in Japan and Taiwan); Klytemnestra for the Staatsoper, Berlin with Maestro Barenboim, in Munich and for the Deutsche Opera, Berlin; Juno in Handel’s Semele and Klytemnestra for The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Widow Begbick in The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny for the Opéra de Paris-Bastille; Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera for the Teatro Bellini, Catania; Mistress Quickly and the Countess in Pique Dame for Glyndebourne Festival Opera; the title role in Orlando for Aix-en-Provence; Polinesso in Ariodante for Welsh National Opera; Kabanicha in Katya Kabanovaand Widow Begbick for Lyric Opera, Chicago; Mme de Croissy in Les Dialogues des Carmélites in Geneva and Japan. Other performances in recent years include Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande with Simon Rattle for the Netherlands Opera and more recently at the Bastille; Andromache in King Priam for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – also recorded for Decca; the Marquise de Birkenfeld in La Fille du Régiment and the Mother in Louise for San Francisco Opera; Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress and the Grandmother in The Gambler for Lyric Opera, Chicago; Madame de la Halitière in Cendrillon for Opéra de Monte Carlo; Herodias in Salome, Brangäne in Tristan and Isolde and Adriano in Rienzi for English National Opera; the title role in La Duenna (Roberto Gerhard) in Madrid and Barcelona; the title role of Orfeo for Opera North, England.
Most recently, Miss Palmer’s performances have included Fricka and Waltraute in Ring cycles and Les Dialogues des Carmelites at the Metropolitan Opera, New York; the Countess in Pique Dame in Chicago; Mme de Croissy in Les Dialogues des Carmélites at the Opera Garnier in Paris, Toulouse and at La Scala Milan with Riccardo Muti; L’enfant et les sortilèges at the Opera Garnier and Giulio Cesare for San Francisco Opera.
Felicity Palmer has long distinguished herself in concert performances and highlights include the European première of Sir Michael Tippett’s Mask of Time, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in Moscow, with Svetlanov, many Handel performances in Vienna with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and frequent appearances at the BBC Promenade concerts in London. She has given recitals in London and throughout Europe and took part in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with Sinopoli and the RPO and Tippett’s Mask of Time with Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the opening night of the London Promenade concerts, both in the Royal Albert Hall, London. She has made many recordings, including Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol and Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi with Pierre Boulez, vocal music by Benjamin Britten for EMI and two records of Victorian and Edwardian songs with John Constable.
Future engagements include Pique Dame, and Pelleas et Melisande at the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Elektra and Sweeney Todd at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden: Handel’s Rodelinda at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich; Gianni Schicchi for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Les Dialogues des Carmelites, War and Peace andElektra for the Paris Opera.
In addition to her concert and operatic work, Felicity Palmer is now working privately with a growing number of young professional singers in London. She also gives masterclasses in Europe and the USA as well as continuing to contribute as and when she can to the work of the music colleges in England.
Felicity Palmer was made a CBE in November 1993.