ChristineRice
- Mezzo-Soprano


About Christine
Christine Rice is one of the leading British mezzo sopranos of her generation, and was appointed MBE in the 2023 New Year's Honours for services to opera.
Highlights in her 2024/25 season include Muse Les contes d'Hoffmann for the Royal Opera and Phaedra in Deborah Warner's staging of Britten's cantata in its Linbury Theatre, La Zia Principessa Suor Angelica for the English National Opera and Ježibaba Rusalka for the Bayerische Staatsoper.
Christine Rice's operatic appearances have also taken her to The Metropolitan Opera, New York; the Opéra national de Paris; the Deutsche Oper, Berlin; Madrid's Teatro Real; the Opernhaus Zürich and the Glyndebourne and Salzburg Festivals.
Her wide ranging repertoire includes the roles of Brangäne Tristan und Isolde, Fricka and Erda Das Rheingold, Judith Duke Bluebeard's Castle, the title role in Carmen, Concepcion L'heure espagnole, Marguerite La damnation de Faust, Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel, the title roles in Gloriana and The Rape of Lucretia, Dorabella Così fan tutte and Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Penelope Il Ritorno d'Ulisse and Irene Theodora, Ruggiero Alcina and the title role in Ariodante.
She created the roles of Miranda and Blanca in the world premieres of Thomas Adès' The Tempest and The Exterminating Angel, and Ariadne in Birtwistle's The Minotaur.
Christine also has a very busy concert career, appearing throughout the UK, Europe, North America and at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International and Aldeburgh festivals working with conductors that include Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, Fabio Luisi, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Representation
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Season Highlights
Video
- Playing
Christine Rice - Madama Butterfly – Flower Duet (Puccini)
Maria Agresta as Madama Butterfly and Christine Rice as Suzuki in the well-known duet "Scuoti quella fronda di ciliegio... Or vieni ad adornar" (or the Flower Duet) from The Royal Opera's production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Credit: Christine Rice, Maria Agresta, The Royal Opera
Ravel Shéhérazade - Christine Rice
Credit: London Philharmonic Orchestra
News
Press
Verdi - Un Giorno di Regno (Marchesa)
Garsington OperaJun 2024Christine Rice as his love interest, the Marchesa del Poggio, sings with a supple elegance and acts with an understated irony that earns her plenty of chuckles.
- Clive Paget, The Guardian
- 30 June 2024
But the pick of the singers was Christine Rice as the Marchesa, a sassy and fun stage presence, with a delicious timbre throughout her range and truly astounding in her low register. Her entrance aria, “Grave a core innamorato”, was a barnstormer.
- David Karlin, BachTrack
- 30 June 2024
Christine Rice is on great form vocally as the raddled, sozzled Marchesa;
- Richard Morrison, The Times
- 30 June 2024
Britten - Peter Grimes (Auntie)
English National OperaSep 2023 - Oct 2023'Christine Rice’s butch publican Auntie, her horror-film-ish nieces (Cleo Lee-McGowan and Ava Dodd) and Alex Otterburn’s Suffolk wide boy Ned Keene are intensely compelling.'
- The Guardian
- 22 September 2023
'Christine Rice’s plush-voiced Auntie is always watchable'
- The Times
- 22 September 2023
'Christine Rice especially is luxury casting as Auntie'
- The Arts Desk
- 22 September 2023
'Rice is luxury casting, filling Britten’s vocal lines with her warm, burnished mezzo,'
- Music OMH
- 24 September 2023
'All the characters were strongly drawn and wonderfully costumed. There were no weak links whatsoever. Christine Rice as Auntie was most eye-catching'
- Seen and Heard International
- 22 September 2023
'Christine Rice’s succulent-toned Auntie out-stares the audience with daring defiance as she pulls her puppets’ strings.'
- Opera Today
- 25 September 2023
Wagner - Tristan und Isolde
Grange Park OperaJun 2023"Christine Rice is luxury casting as Brangäne. Her contrasting richness with Nicholls’ soprano suggests a character more in touch with and at home in the world Isolde so thoroughly rejects, though her own fearsome top notes channeled the distress and fury both characters feel. Her offstage warning, always a high point of Act two, was otherworldly, and she was situated just far enough away to render it truly ghostly."
- Opera Wire
- 15 June 2023
"Around this central due are some fine, responsive Wagnerian singers, especially the two servants Brangane (Christine Rice), Isolde's maid, and Kurwenal (David Stout) as Tristan's henchman who also perishes."
- The Telegraph
- 09 June 2023
"Christine Rice offers a superbly nuanced Brangäne, full of colour and detail."
- The Times
- 09 June 2023
"The Brangäne of Christine Rice rudely stole the vocal honours; as if it was not enough to be given the plumb number of her exquisite Act 2 warning, she sang with such tone, control and phrasing that one understood Tristan’s response in his following line, “Now let me die”."
- Bachtrack
- 09 June 2023
"Christine Rice was a glowingly sung Brangäne, David Stout an impressively strong Kurwenal, and Matthew Rose a deeply considered, resonant King Marke."
- The Financial Times
- 09 June 2023
"Christine Rice and Matthew Rose also give standout performances as Brangäne and King Marke respectively, Rice smoothly warm in tone and Rose devastating on discovering he has been betrayed by Tristan."
- The Stage
Wagner - Das Rheingold
English National OperaFeb 2023The arrival of Erda [...], sung impressively by Christine Rice, also created the necessary gravity and impact, together heralding the tragedy of the curse of the Ring that will (we hope) play out in future installments. As noted above, Christine Rice in particular made that small but significant and truly Wagnerian impression as Erda, but there were notable performances also from John Relyea as Wotan, Leigh Melrose as Alberich, and a suitably shifty portrayal of Loge by Frederick Ballentine.
- Noel Megahey, Opera Journal
- 04 March 2023
Elsewhere in the strong cast, Christine Rice’s star-quality Erda and John Findon’s Mime stand out.
- Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
- 25 February 2023
Christine Rice sang an excellent Erda, the mysterious goddess who rises from her sleep to warn Wotan of impending doom if he retains the ring.
- Mark Ronan, The Article
- 22 February 2023
Christine Rice is luxury casting as Erda, and Madeleine Shaw a multi-faceted Fricka.
- Sam Smith, Opera Online
- 21 February 2023
[...] the best performance overall came from mezzosoprano Christine Rice in the relatively small part of Erda, the earth goddess, who brought great authority back to the proceedings when she came to steer Wotan away from disastrous actions.
- William Harston, Daily Express
- 21 February 2023
Wonderful to see Christine Rice as an all-knowing Erda, deeply wise despite her pyjamas (!), and also deeply resonant of voice.
- Colin Clarke, Seen and Heard
- 21 February 2023
Christine Rice as Erda, goddess of the earth, is an absolute star with an ideal, dark-crimson vocal range.
- Jessica Duchen, I News
- 20 February 2023
Christine Rice delivers a highly charged scene as Erda.
- Richard Fairman, Financial Times
- 20 February 2023
And smack on the button are Christine Rice’s Erda, pouring forth sumptuous tone as she warns Wotan to give up the Ring and Frederick Ballentine’s nifty Loge, crafty and charismatic as he acts as a disloyal Mr Fixit.
- George Hall, The Stage
- 20 February 2023
This is the most emotional moment of the evening in an opera which tends to the schematic, Christine Rice luxury casting indeed. It starts with a slap and continues with a violent kiss, both pertinent but startling.
- David Nice, The Arts Desk
- 20 February 2023
Britten - Gloriana
English National OperaDec 2022The cast (which included Robert Murray as a testosterone-fuelled Earl of Essex, and Christine Rice burning the house down as Elizabeth I – imperious, vulnerable and capricious) performed in ruffs and breeches against a black-clad chorus, while period engravings were projected on a gauze screen.
- Richard Bratby, The Spectator
- 21 January 2023
As Queen Elizabeth I, Gloriana herself, Christine Rice certainly portrayed both the monarch’s strength and vulnerability, as she juggled political and personal challenges. A demanding role vocally, she encompassed its histrionic range from tenderness to fiery outbursts – the shrillness one always hears is written in – and even, in the curiously shocking dress-swapping scene of Act 2, Scene 3, a discreditable sarcasm. Although some of her final melodrama used recorded speech, she was at the very end a touching and capable diseuse. This was Rice’s role debut, and quite a commitment to learn for a one-off occasion, if that is what it proves to be.
- Roy Westbrook, Bachtrack
- 09 December 2022
It’s music that Christine Rice delivered wonderfully here, as well as portraying the aged queen with touching candour.
- Richard Morrison, The Times
- 09 December 2022
Rice, singing Elizabeth for the first time, gave one of her greatest performances to date, admirably secure over the wide span of Britten’s vocal lines, and superbly characterised, the private doubts that offset the public self-assurance wonderfully conveyed.
- Tim Ashley, The Guardian
- 09 December 2022
At the centre of everything, Christine Rice’s magnificent Elizabeth was a repressed authoritarian queen who softened only when Essex appeared, and whose final disintegration caused her to reflect ruefully on her past.
- Nicholas Kenyon, The Telegraph
- 09 December 2022
Christine Rice gave a superbly committed performance as the Queen, calmly dispassionate as she appeared in state but showing deeper strains of emotion as she engaged with the private conflict between love for the impetuous Essex and duty to God and country – the latter fervently expressed in the prayer which closes Act One.
- Curtis Rogers, Colins's Column
- 09 December 2022
Puccini - Madama Butterfly
Royal Opera HouseSep 2022One cast change: Christine Rice replaced Kseniia Nikolaieva as Suzuki, offering a superb prayer in Act II. Interactions with Cio-Cio-San in the final act and in the second act Flower Duet (Tutti i for?’) worked beautifully; another experienced hand adding stability to the production.
- Colin Clarke, Seen and Heard
- 21 September 2022
With her rich mezzo-soprano, Christine Rice, who replaces a previously advertised Kseniia Nikolaieva, is luxury casting as Suzuki and suggests a particularly caring figure. This almost manifests itself at the start of Act II as anger at Cio-Cio-San’s seemingly blind faith, but as she listens to ‘Un bel dì’ her hands appear to alternate between praying and reaching out to try to support her mistress.
- Sam Smith, Opera Online
- 14 September 2022
Elsewhere, Christine Rice was a dutiful and pitying Suzuki, intermittently venting her frustrations, at one point throwing a malevolent Goro (Carlo Bosi) to the ground, later adding rich tones to a poignant Flower Duet.
- David Truslove, Bachtrack
- 13 September 2022
Britten - Phaedra
BathAug 2022Phaedra is a revival of the spare but powerful lockdown production staged by Warner for Covent Garden in 2020, powerfully sung and acted once again by Christine Rice. Written in 1975 for Janet Baker, Britten’s 20-minute work cherry-picks its lines from Robert Lowell’s verse translation of the play. Racine’s anti-heroine demands (and gets) tremendous performances (Glenda Jackson’s unforgettable reading in the 1984 Philip Prowse production regularly led to audience members being stretchered off). Rice growls, whispers, screams the libretto, her mind and body consumed by a doomed passion for her stepson, eaten up by lust and remorse. Her desire for him — “I want your sword’s spasmodic final inch” — is delivered with an almost orgasmic convulsion.
- Louise Levene, Financial Times
- 22 August 2022
Originally composed for Janet Baker, it’s performed here with incredible intensity by Christine Rice, accompanied by Richard Hetherington on the piano. The clarity of Rice’s singing, and her deep involvement with the story, bring its terrible passions to heart-piercing life.
- Sarah Crompton, The Guardian
- 21 August 2022
Leading mezzo-soprano Christine Rice reprises her Olivier Award-nominated performance in Phaedra which was a hit at the Royal Opera House in 2020. She gave an outstanding and intensely dramatic performance in the title role, accompanied by Richard Hetherington on piano and dancers Jonathan Goddard and Tommy Franzen.
- John Baker, Wiltshire Times
- 19 August 2022
Mezzo-soprano Christine Rice in the title role gives us a visceral and despairing heroine who falls madly in love with her step-son, Hippolytus, on the day of her wedding to his father, Theseus. It doesn't end well, of course (spoiler alert), with Phaedra taking her own life. Rice sings at resonant Royal Opera House volume, filling the modest 126-seat auditorium, displaying a variety of bold emotions from love, lust and longing to guilt, despair and shame. Rice is excellent as a passionate and agonised Phaedra, admirably accompanied by pianist and Ustinov director of music Richard Hetherington.
- Cheryl Markosky, Broadway World
- 18 August 2022
Christine Rice makes the role completely her own: she takes us on an emotional journey equivalent to a full-length opera, with vocalism that ranges from near-whisper to exultant shout, allied to anguished physicality and direct human expressiveness.
- Niall Hoskin, Bath Echo
- 16 August 2022
Today in Christine Rice we have a mature, passionate performance which aches with desire and shame. Her voice is pure, her connection to us is tangible – and her communication with pianist Richard Hetherington is really touching. As she wraps herself in the scent of her shame, Rice shrinks before our eyes – commanding our attention and sympathy in equal measure.
- Jill Bennett, Bristol 247
- 16 August 2022