Cullis, Rita

sopraan

Rita Cullis was born in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire and studied at the Royal Man­chester College of Music. She made her debut with the Welsh National Opera where she sang an extensive range of roles including Countess, Tatyana and Marschallin, and subsequently she moved on to Compo­ser, Fiordiligi, Donna Anna (English National Opera), The Fox (Royal Opera House), the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos (Netherlands Opera) and Donna Anna and Female Chorus (San Diego Opera). She has sung Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) for Scottish Opera, Royal Opera House and Palermo, Freia and Helmwige (The Ring) in the new production at the Royal Opera House and Leonora (Oberto) in a new Opera North production.
Rita Cullis has sung Julie in Dvorak's Les Jacobins for Scottish Opera and Leonora (Oberto) for Opera Nice. She also sang Elettra (Idomene­o) for Garsing­ton as well as Freia, Helmwige and Third Norn in The Ring cycle at Covent Garden. In addition she was Alice Ford (Falstaff) and Elisabeth (Tannhäuser) with Opera North, Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) and Alice Ford for English National Opera and the title role in Daphne for the Flanders Opera. Miss Cullis also sang Senta for the Opera de Lille, Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) for the Royal Opera House and in performances at the Savonlin­na Festival and Sieglinde (Die Walküre) with the Royal Opera Covent Garden conducted by Bernard Haitink in London, Birmingham and the Concertgebouw Amster­dam. At the Hamburg State Opera she performed Ellen Orford with Richard Hickox. In a new production of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites at the English National Opera she sang the role of Madame Lidoine.
In the concert field Miss Cullis' recent appearances include: Les illuminations with the Ulster Orchestra, Martinu's Epic of Gilgamesh with the City of Birmingham Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, Strauss' Four last songs with the Philharmonic Orchestra in Antwerp, Mahler's Eighth Symphony in Ely Cathedral and the Royal Albert Hall in London, Macmillan's Gloria with the Royal Ballet in London and at the Opening Gala of Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, Verdi's Requiem with the Ulster Orchestra, and Dvorak's Stabat Mater with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon and Porto. Conductors often invite her for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, including the late Lord Jehudi Menu­hin, the late Garcia Navarro, Leonard Slatkin, Marc Soustrot, Paul Strauss and Joseph Swensen.
Rita Cullis' recent opera engagements include Hecuba (Tippett's King Priam) at English National Opera, and the Nationale Reisopera, Contessa (Le Nozze di Figaro) for the Hamburg State Opera, Regan (Reimann's King Lear) in a Willy Decker production at De Nederlandse Opera + at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden, Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) in San Diego and Lady Billows in Britten's Albert Herring at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Furthermore she sung Creusa in Param Vir's Ion with performances in Strasbourg and the Berliner Festwochen. This season she returned to the Reisopera for Ellen Orford, and is singing Senta with the Opera in Bielefeld.
Highlights among current concert performances are the first act from Die Walküre conducted by Lawrence Renes, Beethoven's 9. Symphony with Joseph Swensen and both Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Mahler's 8^th Symphony  with The Slovenian Philharmonic and conductor Hartmut Haenchen. Maestro Haenchen also invited Miss Cullis to sing Soprano I - Magna Peccatrix in Mahler's 8^th Symphony for concerts in Amsterdam and Dresden, accompanied by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra.

Programma portfolio

Seizoen 2004/2005 Nationale Reisopera - Peter Grimes
Seizoen 2002/2003 Nationale Reisopera - King Priam