A true Soprano Falcon, Allison Cook is renowned as one of today’s leading interpreters of 20th century and contemporary repertoire. Allison’s ability to sing both soprano and mezzo roles combined with her fearless dramatic ability and vocal range seldom found, has seen her create roles such as the Marquise in Francesconi’s Quartett at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Wiener Festwochen and Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, Lea in Benêt Casablanca’s L’enigma de Lea at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and Lavinia in Errolyn Wallen’s Dido’s Ghost in San Francesco and London (Barbican). As well as her highly acclaimed interpretations of Adès's Powder Her Face at BAM in New York, La Monnaie in Brussels and Teatr Wielki in Warsaw, Brunhelda in Ramanati’s Amerika in Zurich and the title role in Kaija Saariaho's Emilie, Allison is equally at home in 20th century repertoire.
Recent engagements include a return to two of her signature roles of Salome and Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle at English National Opera, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, La Monnaie and Warsaw, Venus in Tannhäuser, her role debut as Kundry Parsifal in concert with Pablo Heras-Casado, Miss Jessel in Turn of the Screw at La Monnaie, Teatro alla Scala and Budapest, The Foreign Princess in Rusalka, Schoenberg's Erwartung in Bergen and Antwerp and Pierrot Lunaire with Kazushi Ono in Brussels.
She most recently made her Salzburg Easter Festival debut in a new production of Mussorgsky’s Khovanschina, directed by Simon McBurney and conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen as well as a role debut as Elle in Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine for the Buxton International Festival. Future plans include roles for ENO, Adelaide Festival and a return to La Monnaie.
Other notable productions include the premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole for the Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden as well as Turnage’s Greek at the Edinburgh International Festival and at BAM in New York, and the world premiere of Gerald Barry's Alice's Adventures Underground at the Walt Disney Hall Los Angeles conducted by Thomas Adès, as well as the first premiere staging at Covent Garden. Allison has also worked multiple times with Ensemble Intercontemporain including the world premiere of Peter Eotvos's Le Balcon in Aix en Provence, Amsterdam and Toulouse.
She has worked with conductors including Thomas Adès, Bassam Akkiki, Martyn Brabbins, Patrick Hahn, Susanna Malkki, Cornellias Meister, Alejo Perez, Josep Pons and directors such as Andrea Breth, Robert Carsen, Netia Jones, Ersan Mondtag, Alex Ole, Mariusz Treliński and Krzysztof Warlikowski.
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Poulenc La Voix Humaine (Elle)
Buxton Opera House (July 2025)
...Allison Cook’s outstanding variety and commitment in Poulenc’s demanding central role, which she brings off with considerable aplomb.
George Hall, The Stage
The stand-out of the evening, though, was Allison Cook as Elle in La Voix Humaine. The one-woman one-act opera, based on Cocteau’s monodrama of 1930 and initially created with him as collaborator, is often a vehicle for a virtuosic and gifted dramatic soprano – here it became also a moving and tragic experience, both because of her gifts and because of the ingenious way in which it was paired with Trouble in Tahiti. Also appearing in the festival as Gertrude in Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, her soprano Falcon, with dramatic power over a very wide range, from coloratura at the top to a passionate chest voice, and acting ability made the solo role tragically moving, the climax of the evening.
Robert Beale, The Arts Desk****
The star of the evening was undoubtedly Allison Cook in La Voix Humaine. She played the solo role of the deserted woman speaking on the phone to her former lover and constantly interrupted as her desperation mounts. Her soprano ably encompassed Elle’s emotional journey, highly expressive and at many points unaccompanied. All the cast were accomplished actors as well as singers.
National World
Nothing, though, can detract from Cook's electrifying performance.
Mike Wheeler, Classical Music Daily
Ambroise Thomas Hamlet (Gertrude)
Buxton International Festival (July 2025)
Gertrude is Allison Cook, a real soprano falcon in the 19th century French style, with both pure high and incisive low registers, the ability to handle wide leaps from one to the other, and a great sense of the dramatic: she comes into her own in her scene with Ophélie at the wedding celebration and after Hamlet’s rejection of her.
Robert Beale, The Arts Desk
Allison Cook caps her performance as Gertrude in Thomas' Hamlet with a searing Elle, moving from tiny glimmers of hope to desperation and panic.
Mike Wheeler, Classical Music Daily
Strauss Salome (title role)
Opera Antwerp & Opera Gent (December 2024)
....in her gripping role portrait as Salome. The throaty depth of her mezzo alternates with high notes that border on hysteria and in between the Scottish singer repeatedly sprinkles in touching pianissimi. In terms of acting, she is a force to be reckoned with, she gives it her all and thus shows the numerous facets of her multilayered character.
Jochen Rüth, Opernfreund
....burgeoning into untrammeled fervor as it goes on. Not just this but Mondtag demands the most physical performance, with pretty alarming levels of erotic engagement between Salome and the head.
Robert Thicknesse, OperaNow
Haubenstock-Ramati Amerika (Brunelda)
Opernhaus Zürich (March 2024)
The other rôle with only one attribution is that of the pathetic Brunelda, a fallen diva who falls in love with the homeless man, played by the excellent Allison Cook, a seasoned performer in this repertoire
Katy Oberlé, Anaclase
Allison Cook’s role is that of the singer Brunelda, who sends her twelve-tone coloratura across the room in two grandiose quasi-solos; first a dissolving show number, then in a bathtub scene of the highest vocal presence ( to put it mildly). A tour de force through the realms of modern singing…
Frank Piontek, Der opernfreund.de
Brunelda was impressively sung by the British mezzo-soprano Allison Cook with her spectacular coloratura.
Michael Fisher, Seen and Heard International
Allison Cook plays Brunelda with a vast vocal range and impeccable ability to utilise it. In terms of acting, she makes the character even more sophisticated than Kafkas.
Der Klassikkritiker
Of course the singer Brunelda who gives Haubenstock-Ramati a glamorous performance with a distorted coloratura aria (Allison Cook does this with the most flying colours).
Oper Aktuell
Wagner Un brindis Sagrado (Kundry)
Orquesta de Extremadura (January 2023)
Allison Cook, Kundry, sang with the intensity and expressive varierty demanded by the complexity of the role. With resounding lower register and extremely secure top, when woken in the second act, the fiendishly difficult phrases, as if she were still dreaming, were sublimely executed. After being rejected by Parsifal, she sang the extended 'Grausamer!' passage with great dramatic effect and vocal intensity while trying to seduce Parsifal this time by means of compassion.
Beckmesser
For her part, Allison Cook completed this great cast with an extremely detailed interpretation in terms of phrasing, making credible with the changes of register and colour, the dual nature of Kundry as both a seductrice and as a repentant. The timbre is beautiful and the voice runs equally well in all registers.
Scherzo
Britten The Turn of the Screw (Miss Jessel)
Ivan Fischer Opera Company (October 2022)
Allison Cook's Miss Jessel , a dramatic soprano with a fascinating timbre and precise singing line, probably the character in which vocal quality and stage presence blended best.
GB Opera
Allison Cook sings a magnetic and tormented Miss Jessel.
Opera Click
Wagner Tannhäuser (Venus)
Wuppertaler Bühnen und Sinfonieorchester (March 2022)
Allison Cook made the evening as Venus not only with her solid soprano voice but also with her diverse acting ability.
ioco.de
When Allison Cook sings, Wagnerian and Strauss roles come to mind for the audience especially since the singer has such warmth and depth.
mittelloge.de
Allison Cook convinces as Venus with lascivious playfulness and dark coloured highs.
Online Musik Magazin
Francesconi Quartett (Marquise de Merteuil)
Teatro alla Scala (October 2019)
The interpreters of the original production return and are masterful in their roles, mezzo Allison Cook as he Marquise de Merteul and baritone Robin Adams as the Vicomte de Valmont. Both were amazing, their voices using all possible registers and techniques, from the passionate to the declamatory up to the coloratura...
Renato Verga, Bachtrack
Casablancas L'enigma di Lea (title role)
Gran Teatre del Liceu (February 2019)
Mezzo soprano Allison Cook excelled in the demanding role of Lea both in the dramatic aspect as well as in her ease of projection and employing a timbre endowed with an ethereal quality.
La Platea
As Lea, mezzo-soprano Allison Cook was mesmerizing. A stalwart supporter of edgy modern works, who was superb in the equally difficult 2017 production of "Quartett", here she combined an attractive presence, skilled acting and a beautiful voice.
Metropolitan
Allison Cook knew how to understand Casablancas’ music and produced a pure, translucent tone. He composed a character who experiences pain to ecstasy, through struggle and love to the other, expressed in a line of sensual singing on an axis that goes from modal to diatonism. The result was delicious and captivating.
Bachtrack
(...)here rendered with intensity by the outstanding mezzo soprano Allison Cook, the high spiriling vocal writing projected thrillingly, her expertise in contemporary opera evident through her balance of complex vocal lines with effective, alluring stage action.
Musical Opinion Quarterly
Strauss Salome (title role)
English National Opera (September 2018)
Allison Cook gives a totally committed performance in the title-role, keeping her nerve with steely assurance to sing with great skill and security.
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph
Where she stood out was with the colour and drama of the voice; imperious and enticing in her dealings with Narraboth, desperate and fiery with Jochanaan, cold and forceful with Herod. Her final scene was compellingly delivered, sung with dramatic intelligence and entranced passion.
Bachtrack
Allison Cook looks ideally the modern, young Salome this production requires and gives everything she has. A mezzo in what is nominally a soprano role, she sings with unusually dark colours, and a clean, rapier-like top.
Financial Times
Cook is a mesmerising singer-actor who never lacks intensity or intelligence.
The Times
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