Nicole Cabell
Nicole Cabell |
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Nicole Cabell, born on October 17, 1977 in Panorama City, California, is an American opera singer. She is presently best known as the 2005 winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.
Early years
She is of African American, Korean and Caucasian ancestry and was brought up in the California beach town of Ventura. [1] As a child, she did not listen to classical music, but she did play the flute in her junior high school band[2]. She and a classmate used to play basketball together and would imitate "opera singers"[3]. Her mother encouraged her to join the school choir. She tried out for a school musical and was a success[4]. At the age of 15, Cabell began to notice that "People obviously can hear something, even if I can't," she said. "That's sort of how it's been: I've been walking through doors as they've been presented to me"[5].
She had three years of private singing lessons in high school [6]before studying at the Eastman School of Music (with John Maloy). She then entered the Juilliard School but was only there for a very short time as she had been asked to join the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She stayed there for 3 years during which time the then Center's director, Richard Pearlman, famous soprano and Director of Vocal Studies Gianna Rolandi and opera legend Marilyn Horne were her mentors. She still studies with Rolandi, who is the present director of the newly renamed Ryan Opera Center.
Repertoire
Cabell's repertoire includes Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Juliette (Roméo et Juliette), Adina (L'elisir d'amore), The Vixen (The Cunning Little Vixen), Musetta (La bohème), Lauretta and La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi), Clara (Porgy and Bess), La Princesse in Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges, La Femme in Poulenc's La voix humaine, Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw and Arsamenes in Xerxes. She has recently added the role of Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo.
Her concert repertoire includes Mahler's Symphonies No. 2 and 4, Poulenc's Gloria, Orff's Carmina Burana, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Tippett's A Child of Our Time, André Previn's Honey and Rue and Henryk Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
Nicole Cabell has collaborated with major conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis, James Conlon, Daniel Barenboim, Antonio Pappano, André Previn and Sir Raymond Leppard.
In 2007, she is scheduled to give her first solo recital at St John's Smith Square in London, sing the title role in Donizetti's Imelda de' Lambertazzi at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Musetta in La bohème in Munich and at the Santa Fe Opera's summer festival season.
Debuts
She made her London début on August 2, 2006 at The Proms singing Benjamin Britten's Les Illuminations with Sir Andrew Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She made her Royal Opera House début at the Barbican as Princesse Eudoxie in a concert performance of Halévy's La Juive, on 19 September 2006, conducted by Daniel Oren. Since then, she has sung Adina in L'elisir d'amore in Montpellier. She was due to make her debut at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin in mid-December 2006, but due to the last-minute indisposition of soprano Angela Gheorghiu, Cabell was asked to step in and made her debut somewhat earlier as Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette on 7 December 2006, alongside Neil Shicoff. She had already sung the role at the Spoleto Festival USA in May 2006.
Recordings
Nicole Cabell has signed a recording contract with Decca. Her first solo recital album, Soprano, of arias in French, Italian and English was released in 2007.
Also, she will sing the title role in the recording of Donizetti's Imelda de' Lambertazzi for Opera Rara, conducted by Mark Elder with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She has also recorded Musetta in Puccini's La Bohème for Deutsche Grammophon, alongside Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bertrand de Billy.
Her first recording to be released (2006) was of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, conducted by John Mauceri.
Awards
- Soprano, Cabell's first solo recital album was awarded:
- The Georg Solti Prize Orphée d’Or 2007 by the Académie du Disque Lyrique for a promising recording career.[7] and
- The Gramophone Magazine's Editor's Choice May 2007 [8]