Barbara Bonney is one of her generation's most versatile singers, having achieved equal success with lied, oratorio, modern vocal music, and opera, and on top of all that having become a highly proficient cellist. Her smallish but well-projected voice is especially suited to Mozart, the lighter Richard Strauss operas, and all but the heaviest lieder, and she has been careful in her choice of repertoire; even in her fortiess, she can still call forth a fresh, girlish timbre when it is needed.
The New Jersey-born soprano Barbara Bonney has garnered international praise as one of the world's most accomplished concert artists. She began her professional singing career in the late 1970s when she secured a repertory position with Germany's Darmstadt City Opera. Since then, Bonney has gone on to perform in the major world opera houses, gaining special acclaim for her roles in works by Strauss and Mozart. But all along, Bonney has had a passion for performing lieder, or European classical songs.
Barbara Bonney estimates her lieder repertoire now includes more than 460 songs. Over her career she has made 90 recordings, spanning Baroque to 20th-century music, by such artists as Schubert, Mozart and Sibelius. She has performed with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Berlin Radio Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. Bonney, who lives in London, has been a regular presenter for the Cardiff Singer of the World competition and has hosted Masterclasses for Amateurs for the BBC.
In the 1980s and 1990s, American soprano Barbara Bonney was practically unrivalled in Mozart's soubrette roles such as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Pamina in Die Zauberfluouml;te; her Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier has been regularly placed in the higher echelons of Strauss interpretations. A noted recitalist, she is fluent in numerous languages and has made over ninety recordings.
