Warner Classics & Jazz

Biography

Finnish mezzo-soprano Monica Groop´s wide-ranging career is based upon repertory of great music adventurousness. Graced with a warm mezzo voice and an outstanding vocal talent this exceptionally versatile and expressive singer has achieved renown as an interpreter of a varied mixture of early music, solid classical repertoire, lieder and modern masters. She appears in concert and operatic roles across the world, and is one of the most sought-after singers of her generation. Her career was kick-started being spotted as one of the finalists in the 1989 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition alongside Bryn Terfel and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

Monica Groop made her professional debut as Charlotte in Massenet´s Werther with the Finnish National Opera in 1987, and has been an international mainstay since her debut as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and her London debut at Covent Garden in the highly acclaimed 1991 Wagner-Götz Friedrich Ring Cycle conducted by Bernard Haitink. Other guest appearances at Covent Garden have included Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Varvara in Janacek’s Katya Kabanova and Cherubino. She has also performed Cherubino at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich under Zubin Mehta, and the Mozart Festival in Madrid and La Coruna under Jesús López Coboz. She received rave reviews for her performance as Mélisande in the Peter Sellar´s production of Pèlleas et Mélisande with the Los Angeles Opera, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting. The New York Times wrote of that performance ”Monica Groop was a subtle, affecting Mélisande. The voice was lovely, graceful and intelligently used”. She reappeared as Melisande in several celebrated performances of the Sellars-production at the Amsterdam Opera. Ms Groop also starred as Charlotte in Werther and in the title role of Bizet’s Carmen with the Royal Opera in Stockholm, and as Marguerithe in La Damnation de Faust by Berlioz with the Helsinki National Opera. Other opera highlights include Hänsel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel with the Dresden Philharmonie conducted by Marek Janowski, and Octavian at the Cologne State Opera. She sang the leading role in the world premiere of the Triptych The Age of Dreams by composers Aho, Kortekangas, Rechberger at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 2000.

Monica Groop has made her mark as an exceptional interpreter of Mozart roles and has scored great successes as Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Bordeaux Opera, Welsh National Opera and Mozart Festival in La Coruna, Spain. In 2001 she toured Japan as Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte under Seiji Ozawa, and later she joined András Schiff who conducted the same opera at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy and at the Edinburgh Festival. In 1996 she sang and recorded Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni under Sir Georg Solti for the reopening of the Opéra Palais Garnier in Paris. Ms Groop frequently performs with period-instrument ensembles and has toured Europe and recorded Dorabella and Cherubino with La Petite Bande under Sigiswald Kuijken, and sang Ramiro in La Finta Giardiniera at the Montreaux Festival with Freiburger Barockorchester.

Monica Groop has performed with most of the major orchestras in the world including the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Houston Symphony, LA Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Dresden Staatskapelle, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, NDR Radio Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Rotterdamer Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Oslo Philharmonic under such conductors as Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Christoph Eschenbach, Herbert Blomstedt, Gary Bertini, Marek Janowski, Armin Jordan, Neeme Järvi, Kent Nagano, Myung Whun Chung, Franz Welser-Möst, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sir Roger Norrington, Hans Vonk and the late sir Georg Solti.

An accomplished recitalist, Ms Groop has given solo recitals at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London and Musikverein in Vienna. In honour of the Schubert bicentenary and the Brahms centenary, she joined András Schiff for three Brahms-Schubert recitals in Austria and an all-Schubert recital at the 1997 Lucerne Festival. In 1998 she stunned the audience at the Salzburg Festival in an all Schumann program, again with András Schiff, and in 2002 they scored a great success at the Glyndebourne Festival. For the 1998 Verbier Festival she joined Barbara Hendricks and pianist Stephen Kovacevich for an all-Schubert program, and pianist Michel Béroff for Schönberg’s Brettl-Lieder. She also regularly appears with pianists Rudolf Jansen, Roger Vignoles and Ilmo Ranta.

Monica Groop has received international acclaim as an interpreter of baroque music and has appeared with conductors Ivor Bolton, Harry Bickett, Franz Brüggen, Eric Ericson, Gottfried von der Goltz, Paul Goodwin, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Sigiswald Kuijken, Andrew Manze, Trevor Pinnock, Helmuth Rilling, Peter Schreier and Bruno Weil. In 2002 she sang the role of Zenobia in a celebrated performance of Handel’s Radamisto at the Salzburg Festival with the Wiener Akademie.

Other career highlights for Ms Groop include an appearance with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the 1989 Tanglewood Festival (Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody), the US premiere of Frank Martin’s Der Cornet with Robert Spano and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in 1998, a tour with Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder with Deutsches Symphonieorchester under Kent Nagano, and her Santa Fe Opera debut in the US premiere of Kaija Saariaho´s opera L´amour de loin directed by Peter Sellars and conducted by Robert Spano.

Future engagements brings her to the New York City Opera for the leading role in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, and to Berlin for Frank Martin’s Der Cornet with the Berlin Radio Symphony under Marek Janowski. In October 2003 she appears in Mahler’s second symphony with the LA Philharmonic (Salonen) for the opening of the new Disney Concert Hall, and in November 2003 she sings the part of Maria in Berlioz’ L’Enfance du Christ with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Colin Davis.

A prolific recording artist, Ms Groop has made over fifty recordings. Her latest solo disc ”Flamme d’amour” featuring French opera arias was released in the Spring 2002, and the disc ”Arie amorose” in 2001 featuring famous Baroque arias, both on Warner’s Finlandia label. The New York Times critic stated that ”she makes even the familiar music seem fresh”. The same label released her rendering of Bach Alto Cantatas in 1998. The San Francisco Chronicle noted about this recording that ”Groop´s sound is a marvel, a rich, velvety sonority with a wealth of color informing every note. Even more striking though, is the clarity and forthrightness that she brings to Bach´s music”. She also records for Sony, Decca, Chandos, Harmonia Mundi, CPO, Accent and BIS.

Monica Groop is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music.