“The superb Victoria Simmonds”
Since creating the title role in Jonathan Dove’s highly acclaimed The Adventures of Pinocchio for Opera North in 2007 (dir. Martin Duncan, des. Francis O’Connor, con. David Parry), and singing Henze’s Voices with the London Sinfonietta under the baton of David Atherton in Krakow in 2008, Victoria has gained an enviable reputation in the performance of contemporary music.
Victoria Simmonds studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with David Pollard. Her career began as a Young Artist and then Company Principal at ENO, singing roles such as Nancy T’ang/Nixon in China, Cherubino/Figaro, Zaida/The Turk in Italy, Pitti-Sing/The Mikado, Ascanius/The Trojans, Rosina/The Barber of Seville, Dorabella/Così fan tutte, Hermia/A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Zerlina/Don Giovanni.
She has also sung for Grange Park Opera, Garsington Opera, Opera Holland Park and the Buxton Festival and sang the title role of Carmen at the Royal Albert Hall. Abroad she has sung with the Netherlands Opera, Stuttgart and Halle Opera companies and Wellgunde/Das Rheingold with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle at the Aix Festival. At the Concertgebouw she has sung in Le Comte Ory and the title role of L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, and has worked with the Philharmonia, the Hallé, the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals, the BBCSSO, and Les Troyens for the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis at the BBC Proms.
Other operatic roles include Idamante/Idomeneo in the Strauss/Mozart arrangement for the Buxton Festival, Dorabella/Così for Opera North, Zaida/Il turco in Italia for Garsington Opera, the role of Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther at Les Azuralies Opera Festival as well as a new short opera by Neil Hannon based upon Tolstoy’s Sevastopol Sketches for Royal Opera House 2.
Victoria created the role of Marie/Angel 2 in Katie Mitchell and Vicki Mortimer’s production of George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, which initially toured Aix-en-Provence, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Amsterdam, Toulouse, Paris, Munich, and Vienna. The ROH performances, DVD and CD have won over 17 awards, including the Sky Arts Award for Opera in 2013. Other performances include Lisbon, Lincoln Centre New York, a revival at ROH Covent Garden, the Bolshoi, Moscow in 2017, and concert performances in Beijing Festival, Shanghai, Berliner Philharmonie and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in 2018.
Other premieres include: Through His Teeth/Luke Bedford for ROH as part of their Faustian Pack. She created the role of Boy in The Way Back Home by Joanna Lee and Rory Mullarkey (after Oliver Jeffers) - ENO’s first commission of a children’s opera. Anna in Silver Birch by Roxanna Panufnik/Jessica Duchen for Garsington Opera. London Premiere of Ryan Wigglesworth’s Echo and Narcissus at the Wigmore Hall. David Matthews’ White Flame - a song cycle for voice and piano quintet to texts by Muriel Spark and commissioned by the Nash Ensemble was premiered October 2018 at the Purcell Room.
Recent new roles include Minsk Woman/Flight by Jonathan Dove, Angelina/La Cenerentola, Donna Elvira/Don Giovanni, Meg Page/Falstaff, Mother & Witch/Hansel and Gretel, Brangäne/Tristan und Isolde, Marcellina/Figaro, Alma March/Little Women - Adamo (UK premiere), Watkins/Itch - Dove (world premiere).
(last updated 15/04/2024)