Catherine Cook

Mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook has appeared with leading opera companies around the U.S. and has been called a go-to singer for the San Francisco Opera. Often appearing in contemporary operatic works, she also teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Cook was born in Villa Park, Illinois, on October 31, 1963. In high school, she saw a production of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Chicago Lyric Opera and was immediately drawn to opera. Cook attended Millikin University and went on for a master's degree in music at Wichita State University. Cook rounded out her education with an Artist Diploma at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Primary among her teachers were Barbara Honn and George Gibson. In 1990, she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition, and she has gone on to appear at the Metropolitan Opera several times. Settling in the San Francisco area, she earned an Adler Fellowship and participated in the Merola Opera Program, where she sang the title role in Handel's Ariodante, HWV 33. Cook has appeared with the San Francisco Opera in a great variety of roles, including, in 2019-2020, Marcellina in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. She has also sung at the Houston Grand Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera, and the Santa Fe Opera. Cook is notable for the frequency with which she appears in contemporary operas. She has sung with Opera Parallèle as Mama in Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milk and Julia Child in Lee Hoiby's Bon Appetit! Cook sang in Seattle in the world premiere of Tom Cipullo's Holocaust opera The Parting with the ensemble Music of Remembrance. Cook has been heard on various operatic recordings as well as a recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, with the Cincinnati Philharmonia. In 2020, she was featured on the world premiere recording of Cipullo's The Parting. Cook teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she holds the Frederica von Stade Distinguished Chair in Voice.
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