Winter/spring 2025: Julia Bullock tours U.S. and UK with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, sings title role in Met premiere of John Adams’s Antony & Cleopatra, performs her “History’s Persistent Voice” program at Lincoln Center and Yale, more

“Julia Bullock [is] an essential soprano for our times.” – Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

(January 2025) — On the heels of her critically acclaimed November engagement in the staged version of Handel’s Theodora at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Grammy-winning American classical singer Julia Bullock begins 2025 with a tour of both the U.S. and UK singing an all-Baroque program with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Jan 9–23). Bookending Bullock’s season in the spring is her return to the Metropolitan Opera to star in John Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra opposite baritone Gerald Finley, with the composer conducting (May 12–June 7). In between those engagements, she sings Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs – composed especially for her – at New York’s Lincoln Center (Feb 11) and Yale’s Schwarzman Center (Feb 7 & 8) as part of her “History’s Persistent Voice” program, as well as in collaboration with Music Director Jonathon Heyward and the Baltimore Symphony (Feb 27–March 1); and sings Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Minnesota Orchestra alongside conductor Thomas Søndergård (March 7 & 8).

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment tour (Jan 9–23)

Bullock joins the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment – “Britain’s indisputably best period instrument ensemble” (The Independent) – for a tour of the U.S. and UK with an all-Baroque program that includes vocal music by Handel, Strozzi, and Purcell. Venues include London’s Southbank Centre, UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall – where Bullock is in residence with Cal Performances this season – and New York’s 92Y, where both the soprano and orchestra are making their debuts.

John Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra at the Met (May 12–June 7)

Pulitzer Prize winner John Adams is one of Bullock’s frequent collaborators: she created the role of Dame Shirley in his Girls of the Golden West and sang the role of Kitty Oppenheimer on the Grammy-nominated 2018 Nonesuch recording of his opera Doctor Atomic, with the composer conducting the BBC Symphony. Commissioned to write a new Antony and Cleopatra to celebrate the centennial of the San Francisco Opera, Adams turned to Bullock once again to bring one of Shakespeare’s greatest female protagonists to life. A co-commission and co-production with the Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Metropolitan Opera, the opera debuts at the Met in May of 2025 with Bullock in the title role, and follows her house debut last season in Adams’s El Niño. Adams adapted the libretto himself from Shakespeare’s tragedy, adding supplementary passages from Plutarch, Virgil, and other classical texts and collaborating with director Elkhanah Pulitzer and playwright Lucia Scheckner to combine the mythic image of antiquity with the glamor of 1930s Hollywood. Gerald Finley sings opposite Bullock in the role of Antony, returning to the role after last fall’s European debut of the work in Barcelona. Tenor Paul Appleby sings Caesar, who goes to war with Antony, and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong is Caesar’s sister and Antony’s forsaken wife, Octavia.

“History’s Persistent Voice” and Baltimore Symphony (Feb 7–11; Feb 27–March 1)

“One of the singular artists of her generation – a singer of enveloping tone, startlingly mature presence and unusually sophisticated insight into culture, society and history” (The New York Times), Bullock presents her thoughtfully curated “History’s Persistent Voice” program at Yale University’s Schwarzman Center (Feb 7 & 8) before performing it at New York’s Lincoln Center (Feb 11) to kick off their American Songbook series. Comprising songs developed by people who were enslaved, alongside new works, and words by Black visual artists and incarcerated poets, the program was developed during the 2018–19 season while Bullock was Artist-in-Residence at the Met Museum. It features Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs – composed for Bullock – which she also sings shortly thereafter on tour around Maryland with the Baltimore Symphony and Music Director Jonathon Heyward (Feb 27–March 1). “History’s Persistent Voice” also includes five newly commissioned compositions by American women of color: I Come Up the Hard Way and ain’t my home by Yale School of Music alumna Carolyn Yarnell, Quilt by Pamela Z, Mama’s Little Precious Thing by Allison Loggins-Hull, and Green Pastures by Tania León. These performances are produced by Arktype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann and Yale Schwarzman Center. The project is curated by Bullock and features conductor Christian Reif, visual artist Hana S. Kim, and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.

Minnesota Orchestra (March 7 & 8)

Rounding out Bullock’s season are two performances with the Minnesota Orchestra and conductor Thomas Søndergård of Britten’s song cycle Les Illuminations, based on texts by Rimbaud (March 7 & 8). When the soprano sang the same piece with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in 2020, The Arts Desk found that she “played it out as a series of very disturbed visions,” and “sang it all with compelling thrust, brilliance and luminosity.” After a performance of the cycle with the San Francisco Symphony earlier that year, again in collaboration with Salonen, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman praised her for “the ability to plunge unnervingly deep into this music and then surface, like some kind of musical pearl diver, with great glistening strands of expressive jewels.”

Praise for Theodora at Madrid’s Teatro Real

In November, Bullock made a long-awaited return engagement at Madrid’s Teatro Real, performing a staged rendition of Handel’s oratorio Theodora, joined by Joyce DiDonato– with whom she performed the work at London’s Royal Opera House in 2022 – and British countertenor Iestyn Davies. Director Katie Mitchell made her Teatro Real debut with the production, a provocative, contemporary take on the story that highlighted themes of religious fanaticism and violence. Holland’s Place de l’Opera praised the soprano, saying that “Julia Bullock … plays a passionate Theodora in which the dividing line between Handel’s religious fanaticism and Katie Mitchell’s revolutionary fanaticism merge seamlessly. Her voice blends beautifully with that of Iestyn Davies in their duets.” Madrid Actual agreed, declaring: “The vocal cast was the highlight of the evening. Julia Bullock as Theodora stood out for her warm and expressive timbre, delicately capturing the more introspective arias.”

Julia Bullock: upcoming engagements

Jan 9–23
Tour with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
HANDEL: “Verdi prati” from Alcina
HANDEL: “Da tempeste” from Giulio Cesare
STROZZI: “Che si può fare?”
PURCELL: “If Love’s a Sweet Passion” from The Fairy Queen
HANDEL: “Let the Bright Seraphim” from Samson
Jan 9: London, England (Southbank Centre)
Jan 11: Saffron Walden, England (Saffron Hall)
Jan 19: Berkeley, California (Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances)
Jan 21: UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA (Lobero Theatre, UCSB)
Jan 23: New York, NY (92Y)
Jan 24: Washington, DC (Library of Congress)

Feb 7–11
Northeast U.S. tour of “History’s Persistent Voice”
Jessie MONTGOMERY: Five Freedom Songs
Carolyn YARNELL: I Come Up the Hard Way (YSC Commission)
Carolyn YARNELL: ain’t my home (YSC Commission)
Pamela Z: Quilt
Allison LOGGINS-HULL: Mama’s Little Precious Thing
Tania LEÓN: Green Pastures
Feb 7 & 8: New Haven, CT (Schwarzman Center)
Feb 11: New York, NY (Lincoln Center)

Feb 27–March 1
Maryland tour with Baltimore Symphony
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Jonathon Heyward, conductor
Jessie MONTGOMERY: Five Freedom Songs
MAHLER: Symphony No. 4
Feb 27: North Bethesda, MD (The Music Center at Strathmore)
Feb 28: College Park, MD (The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center)
March 1: Baltimore, MD (Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall)

March 7 & 8
Minneapolis, MN
Orchestra Hall
Minnesota Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård, conductor
BRITTEN: Les Illuminations

May 12, 15, 20, 24, 30; June 3, 7
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera
John Adams, conductor
Gerald Finley (Antony)
John ADAMS: Antony and Cleopatra