Caitlin Hulcup


Caitlin Hulcup is an Australian mezzo-soprano, who began her career in that country before appearing on the international stage from 2007 forward.

Early life and education

Career

Caitlin Hulcup started her music career as a violinist and violist, receiving scholarships to the Banff Center for the Arts and playing in the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. She was chosen by the W.A. Opera to be a Young Artist in 2000, where she performed as Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro. While attending the Victorian College of the Arts for voice, Hulcup won prizes in lieder competitions. She sang Strauss Lieder as the winner of the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards with the Tasmanian and Sydney Symphony Orchestra—which was broadcast on national radio and television—and sang in the "Credo Mass" by Mozart with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2001. Hulcup won the Opera Foundation Australia's Covent Garden National Opera Studio Scholarship in 2002 and was the Australian candidate for the 2002 Belevedere Singing Competition.

International, 2007-present

Hulcup made an impression on the international opera scene in 2007, when she replaced Angelika Kirchschlager, who had laryngitis, as Handel's Ariodante in London and Madrid. The Financial Times wrote that:
Following her successes in London and Madrid, she sang the role of Meg Page in Falstaff at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées the next year and Ariodante at the Handel Festival in Germany.
During the 2010-11 season, she was a principal singer at the Vienna State Opera and then performed Vivaldi's Griselda in Sydney for early music group Pinchgut Opera. In 2012 she performed in two newly staged productions, singing the role of Donna Elvira in Valencia and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier in Florence, both under Zubin Mehta. She also performed Cyrus in Belshazzar with Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie in a tour of France, UK and Spain.
In 2013, Hulcup repeated the role of Donna Elvira with Zubin Mehta in Florence in a new production by director Lorenzo Mariani. She sang Calbo in Rossini's Maometto II for Garsington Opera under David Parry, which was recorded, and then returned to the role of Octavian, performing for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow under Vassily Sinaisky. After giving recitals and masterclasses at the University of Western Australia, she sang the title role of Sesto in Taipei, in a new Justin Way production of La clemenza di Tito conducted by Benjamin Bayl.
In 2014, the mezzo performed the role of Cesare in Vivaldi's Catone in Utica at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Alceste in Admeto in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna with Alan Curtis, and in Il Complesso Barocco. Additionally, Beethoven's Missa solemnis with Martin Haselböck and Wiener Akademie was also presented at the Theatre an der Wien.
As of 2019 she is Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London and a visiting academic to the University of Melbourne.