Here we get close to the depressive and clairvoyant Justine – phenomenally portrayed by the vocally agile Lauren Snouffer. She becomes a classic opera heroine, dressed in white, seemingly sleepwalking with her stratospheric soprano calling out to a dark and uncomprehending outside world.
Dagens Nyheter, Camilla Lundberg
Le plus beau chant, et le style le plus accompli, sont à chercher, ce soir, du côté de Lauren Snouffer, distribuée en Musica (curieusement présentée comme une femme traitée pour un cancer), puis en Speranza.
Opéra Magazine, David Shengold
Den Ophelia-Monolog, neu collagiert und behutsam in seine Einzelteile zerlegt, zauberte die Sopranistin Lauren Snouffer in höchste Lagen und ließ die Töne schweben. Snouffer bewältigt diese Herausforderung, alles andere als harmlos, großartig und anrührend.
Hamburger Abendtsblatt, Joachim Mischke
As Romilda, soprano Lauren Snouffer delivered beautifully dark, shimmering tone and thrilling melismatic ornamentation.
Opera News, Jennifer Goltz
In this iconic “trousers role,” Snouffer literally bounds into Act I and never stops bounding. Playing a boy who’s continually in love with someone, anyone, but the Countess is his unrequited desire, she’s an utter delight…It’s her voice, of course, that seals the deal, as she gloriously sings her heart out with Mozart as perfect accompanist. Snouffer’s a scene stealer of the highest order, and it takes quite a lot to make an impression with so many other scene stealers in sight in this picturesque co-production from Houston Grand Opera and Glyndebourne Festival.
Houston Press, D.L. Groover
As his sweetheart, Mabel, Lauren Snouffer made her appearance in a flurry of coloratura. She proceeded to wow with crystalline high notes in her delicious song, “Poor wand’ring one.” She charmed every minute she appeared.
Cincinnati Business Courier, Janelle Gelfand
Soprano Lauren Snouffer communicated with a lustrous tone…She soared through treacherous leaps effortlessly and with beauty of line, while Adams and the orchestra created a sumptuous backdrop…Near the work’s close, she brought expressive power to “Memorial de Tlatelolco.”
Cincinnati Business Courier, Janelle Gelfand
Snouffer and Hampson gave polished, highly convincing performances. Snouffer’s demanding solos filled the hall, but her voice also stirred compassion for the young maid in a fix, a woman employed by a married man who’s awfully keen to please her. Snouffer also demonstrated a mastery of her soprano that was as inviting as it was well-tempered, as colourful as it was secure.
Bachtrack, Sarah Batschelet
Vor allem Lauren Snouffer, die Sängerin der Titelrolle, weiss die Expressivität der Gesangslinien mit ihrem blühenden Sopran zu nutzen. In ihrer Darstellung der Griet wird die Zerrissenheit der Figur zwischen den banalen Hausarbeitspflichten als Dienstmädchen und ihren aufkeimenden künstlerischen Ambitionen berührend deutlich. Überdies verfügt Snouffer szenisch über ein reicheres Mienenspiel als die etwas wächsern-maskenhafte Scarlett Johansson in der gleichnamigen Verfilmung von Peter Webber.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Christian Wildhagen
Sister Constance emerged Friday as the story’s most sympathetic character. Lauren Snouffer’s silvery tones put across the young novice’s sunny nature right away, and when Constance told about the fun she once had at her brother’s wedding, Snouffer’s little burst of dancing lent the drama one of its few moments of lightness. Though high notes in Poulenc may not have the showiness of those in Verdi or Puccini, Snouffer’s ease in soaring aloft turned those moments into embodiments of Constance’s spirit and fervor. Snouffer also sang the quieter moments with a lyricism and conviction that revealed Constance’s visionary, even mystical side, such as when she (in French) declares: “We do not die for ourselves alone, but for each other—or sometimes even instead of each other.”
Texas Classical Review, Steven Brown
L’Américaine Lauren Snouffer, qui reprend le rôle, est plus qu’un prix de consolation : alter ego vocal de Hannigan, dont elle fut la doublure pour la création mondiale de Written on Skin, de George Benjamin, elle possède une belle et originale personnalité, qui donne envie de la revoir et de la réentendre bientôt.
Télérama, Sophie Bourdais
Lauren Snouffer…incarne Gerda. Son timbre doux comme une neige poudreuse reste homogène sur un large ambitus très sollicité. Elle s’acquitte avec succès et précision des difficultés rythmiques de sa partition, mais aussi des défis techniques comme ces lentes vocalises, sinusoïdes parcourant les registres par des lignes escarpées qu’elle accompagne d’un geste de la main.
Olyrix, Damien Dutilleul
Écrit à l’origine pour Barbara Hannigan, la soprano canadienne qui a incité le compositeur à écrire de la musique vocale, le rôle de Gerda est ici repris par Lauren Snouffer, qui porte bravement sur ses épaules si frêles d’apparence (on donnerait volontiers à la jeune femme l’âge du rôle, tant elle se montre crédible en fillette courageuse et déterminée) une partition où elle est de toutes les scènes ou presque, aigus éprouvants à l’appui, qu’elle aborde sans problème apparent.
Opera Forum, Catherine Jordy
Snouffer has the voice and the attitude to grow into a memorable Lulu. She played the temptress with delicious abandon, feline grace and a light, clear soprano that rose easily to coloratura.
Opera News, Roberto Herrscher
Hallenberg at this stage is hardly a revelation, but the young American Lauren Snouffer’s Teofane is. The timbre is lovely, pure and flexible, yet possessing the kind of sensitive vulnerability that automatically inspires protective sentiments. ‘Affanni del pensier’ (Act I), an aria wracked with chromatic pain, is drawn with a wonderful sense of line that finds her at her most affecting, but Snouffer is quite outstanding throughout.
OPERA, Brian Robins
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Recognized for her unique artistic curiosity in world-class performances spanning the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Johann Adolph Hasse through to Missy Mazzoli and Sir George Benjamin, American Lauren Snouffer is celebrated as one of the most versatile and respected sopranos on the international stage.
Lauren Snouffer celebrates two high profile operatic debuts this season: with the Royal Swedish Opera she creates the role of Justine in the world premiere of Mikael Karlsson and Royce Vavrek’s opera Melancholia based upon the powerful film by Lars von Trier, and she makes a Glyndebourne debut as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. A deeply admired guest of The Cleveland Orchestra, Lauren Snouffer returns to the stage of Severance Music Hall to join Daniel Harding for Mahler’s Fourth Symphony paired with Ces belles années, a new work by Besty Jolas, commissioned specifically as a companion piece to the Mahler symphony; the pairing of these works, as designed by the Franco-American composer, marks the North American premiere. Highlights of the symphonic calendar also include a semi-staged concert performance of Sir George Benjamin’s Written on Skin with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the composer, Stravinsky’s cantata Les Noces with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony, and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Houston Symphony led by Music Director Juraj Valčuha. She also appears with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Dame Jane Glover in Handel’s Messiah and in Bach’s St. John Passion with the Seattle Symphony, under the baton of Nicholas McGegan.
Lauren Snouffer’s 2022-23 season collaborations included Mahler’s Second Symphony with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra, John Adams’ El Niño with the Cleveland Orchestra and the composer on the podium, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with James Conlon and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s Mass in c minor, K.427 with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony, Handel’s Jephtha with Dame Jane Glover and Music of the Baroque, Handel’s Messiah with Maasaki Suzuki and the San Francisco Symphony, Bach’s Mass in G Major, BWV 236 with Bernard Labadie and the Handel & Haydn Society, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic, and Hans Abrahamsen’s Let me tell you with Alan Gilbert conducting the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester.
Operatic performances of the season included Die Zauberflöte in a return engagement with the Opernhaus Zürich, Le nozze di Figaro with Houston Grand Opera, Il barbiere di Siviglia at Austin Opera, and debuts at Detroit Opera in Xerxes, and at Santa Fe Opera in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with a world premiere orchestration by Nico Muhly.
Her operatic performances on leading international stages have fortified the soprano’s place as one of the eminent interpreters of contemporary music; she created the title role in Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring with Opernhaus Zürich and portrayed the lead role in Hans Abrahamsen’s The Snow Queen at Opera National du Rhin. She assayed the title role of Berg’s Lulu in a new production at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago conducted by Pedro-Pablo Prudencio and directed by Mariame Clément, and returned to Houston Grand Opera for the world premieres of The Phoenix by composer Tarik O’Regan and librettist John Caird and The House Without a Christmas Tree by Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek.
Lauren Snouffer’s concert schedule has yielded marvelous results with many of the world’s most distinguished conductors and orchestras including performances with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra, Rafaël Pichon and the Handel & Haydn Society, Cristian Măcelaru and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Krzysztof Urbański and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Edo de Waart and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Markus Stenz and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Patrick Dupré Quigley and Seraphic Fire, and with Marin Alsop and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo.
Past seasons include Houston Grand Opera performances of Dialogues des Carmélites in a production by Francesca Zambello and Le nozze di Figaro conducted by Harry Bicket in a production by Michael Grandage as well as presentations of Carousel, Show Boat, The Rape of Lucretia, and L’italiana in Algeri. Additional highlights include Lyric Opera of Chicago performances of Rusalka, La clemenza di Tito, and a new production of Orphée et Eurydice directed and choreographed by John Neumeier under the baton of Harry Bicket; a Seattle Opera debut as La Comtesse Adèle in Rossini’s Le comte Ory conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti; Die Zauberflöte at Seattle Opera and at Lyric Opera of Kansas City; a new Christopher Alden production of Handel’s Aci, Galatea, e Polifemo with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra under the baton of Nicholas McGegan; and Max Emanuel Cencic’s new production of Hasse’s Siroe at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, with additional performances in Budapest and Vienna.
Closely associated with Sir George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, Lauren Snouffer has sung under the composer’s baton at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, with the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, and Opera Philadelphia. She has performed Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, presented the world premiere of Andrew Norman’s A Trip to the Moon with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and joined Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic in the title role of HK Gruber’s Gloria – A Pig Tale in a production staged by Doug Fitch.
A Grammy Award-nominated artist, her impactful recording catalogue includes Hasse’s Siroe and Handel’s Ottone with George Petrou for Decca, Gottschalk’s Requiem for the Living with Vladimir Lande on Novona Records, Grantham’s La cancíon desesperada conducted by Craig Hella Johnson on Harmonia Mundi, and Feldman’s Rothko Chapel with Steven Schick for ECM.
An alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Lauren Snouffer was graduated from Rice University and The Juilliard School.
Melancholia, Royal Swedish Opera
Melancholia, Royal Swedish Opera
Girl With A Pearl Earring, Opernhaus Zürich
The Snow Queen, Opéra national du Rhin
Clori, Tirsi e Fileno, Ars Lyrica Houston
Non sa che sia dolore, BWV 209, Ars Lyrica Houston
Ottone, Il Pomo d'Oro
Arminio, Handel Festival Karlsruhe
Written on Skin, Opera Philadelphia
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