Caitlin Hulcup

Beginnings in Australia

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.

Career on the international scene

She 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:

she rode the fearsome coloratura of her great Act 1 aria with aplomb. In "Scherza infida" she wrung our hearts, while "Dopo notte" showcased her open-heartedness as well as her brilliant way with the da capo decoration.

Following her successes in London and Madrid, she sang the role of Meg Page in Falstaff at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées 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, Caitlin 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 in Sesto in Taipei, in a new Justin Way production of La Clemenza di Tito conducted by Benjamin Bayl.

So far in 2014, the mezzo has performed the role of Cesare in Vivaldi's Catone in Utica at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Alceste in Admeto in the Theatre 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.