Allison Cook / Reviews

Allison Cook is a perfect Marquise de Merteuil; an intelligent, cynical, sophisticated, androgynous beauty. Cook is a star with scenic charisma and voice control allowing her to withstand the sharp contrasts of the music and capture all the variety of expression in this dynamic role.” ( teatro .it April 2011)

Phenomenal…. It would be impossible to imagine a more beautiful, intense, predatory and tragically glacial Marquise than that created by Allison Cook.” (Il Giorno, April 2011)

“As the Duchess, Allison Cook was nothing less than superb. A compelling presence at all times, she handled the vocal and dramatic demands of the role stylishly and with apparent fearlessness. Again and again I was impressed by the timing of her gestures and utterances, the nuance which she brought to the expression of an elaborately constructed personality. Cook managed to be at once pitiable and commanding as she negotiated a path through her own history, until the last of her delusions was stripped, leaving her with only bitter truths about society and herself.” (paperblog, February 2013)

“Ms. Cook took the remainder of the show onto her shoulders, moving with consummate insight and dignity through one of contemporary opera’s most psychologically nuanced sequences…. [She] rose to the task, her Duchess a dark reflection of Strauss’ Marschallin for an age in which noblesse is no longer obliged.” (Steve Smith, The New York Times, February 2013)

Bien qu’elle n’échappe pas à cette tension, l’écriture vocale ménage un lyrisme dont s’empare l’excellent plateau. La mezzo-soprano Allison Cook, dont on se souvient notamment de la prestation dans Quartett de Francesconi à Milan en 2011, confirme son engagement dans la création lyrique et charge le personnage de Lea de toute l’intensité possible sans jamais basculer dans l’excès.

Mezzo soprano Allison Cook excelled in the demanding role of Lea both in the dramatic aspect as well as in her ease of projection and employing a timbre endowed with an ethereal quality.” (La Platea, February 2019)

Allison Cook spends one and a quarter hours demonstrating all manner of vocal and interpretative layers to portray a gripping and moving character. From delicate internal struggles to dramatic outbursts; from speech to a large aria; the mezzo-soprano shows a wide range of technique and huge potential to keep the audience present at every moment.” (Salzburger Nachrichten, June 2014)

“The considerable task of around 70 minutes completely alone on stage falls to Allison Cook. The way the mezzo-soprano solves this theatrically and vocally is downright phenomenal. She mastered the extreme demands of the difficult vocal part which was predominantly in French, partly in English, with flying colours – be it during the more ordinary writing or the extreme and almost unsingable heights - and the rest of her role was sung with incredibly purity and sophistication.”

The interpreters of the original production return and are masterful in their roles, mezzo Allison Cook as he Marquise de Merteul and baritone Robin Adams as the Vicomte de Valmont. Both were amazing, their voices using all possible registers and techniques, from the passionate to the declamatory up to the coloratura..." (Renato Verga, Bachtrack, October 2019)

In his epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons), Choderlos de Laclos gives an account of the libertine cynicism of the depraved French aristocracy in 1782, seven years before the storming of the Bastille. Two centuries later, the German playwright Heiner Müller rewrote the text by stressing its verbal defiance and making it a cruel game of sex and death between two characters, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, who eventually play the other two personas of the novel, Madame de Tourvel and the young Cécile de Volanges – hence the title of the piece, Quartett. The interpreters of the original production return and are masterful in their roles, mezzo Allison Cook as the Marquise de Merteuil and baritone Robin Adams as the Vicomte de Valmont. Both were amazing, their voices using all possible registers and techniques, from the passionate to the declamatory up to the coloratura, the male voice often climbing to falsetto when warbling in the role of the Marquise. The two characters must support a deliberately mannered acting ("The brutality of our conversation bores me. We should have our parts played by beasts."), their task is burdensome and demanding, ranging from the blasphemous to the obscene to the ironic, as when the two characters exchange their respective roles ("I think I could get used to being a woman," says Valmont in the part of the Marquise, and she comes out with "I wish I could.”).

Allison Cook gives a totally committed performance in the title-role, keeping her nerve with steely assurance to sing with great skill and security.” (Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, September

After a not inconsiderable time in their roles, Daniel Kramer and Martyn Brabbins, English National Opera’s Artistic and Music Directors, have been able to produce a season that is entirely their own, uninfluenced by their predecessors. The heart sank on reading Kramer’s introduction to the season which he optimistically hopes “provoke discussion around what an improved balance of masculine and feminine might encompass and the changes we need to make this possible”; optimism that his productions might break free of the chains imposed by this restrictive mission statement lingered, but the first test is Adena Jacob’s new production of Richard Strauss’ Salome which alas does not bode well. Making her first appearance at ENO, Allison Cook’s role debut as Salome was a mixed success. I am not quite convinced that the role’s unique range is entirely suited to her voice and there were a couple of moments where the voice sounded, if not pushed then not entirely comfortable. Diction also veered in clarity. Where she stood out was with the colour and drama of the voice; imperious and enticing in her dealings with Narraboth, desperate and fiery with Jochanaan, cold and forceful with Herod. Her final scene was compellingly delivered, sung with dramatic intelligence and entranced passion, the severed head carried within a plastic bag as though straight from a butcher’s stall. David Soar, perhaps discomforted by the muzzle-like contraption with the camera on the end, sang Jochanaan with typical musicality, but rather less force than usual.

Allison Cook made the evening as Venus not only with her solid soprano voice but also with her diverse acting ability."

Allison Cook convinces as Venus with lascivious playfulness and dark coloured highs."

Allison Cook sings a magnetic and tormented Miss Jessel."

Allison Cook's Miss Jessel , a dramatic soprano with a fascinating timbre and precise singing line, probably the character in which vocal quality and stage presence blended best."