SashaCooke

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Mezzo-Soprano
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News

  • 11 March 2022

    Sasha Cooke returns to the Metropolitan Opera

    Read full article
  • 25 October 2021

    Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke signs to Askonas Holt in Europe

    Read full article

Press

  • Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira)

    Houston Grand Opera
    Apr 2024 - May 2024

    • Sasha Cooke mastered this role, whether singing the fiery passagework of Donna Elvira's outrage or the poignant lyricism of her lover's yearning. There was, moreover, a dark-chocolatey resonance to her mezzo-soprano that was attractive all on its own.

  • The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Sylvie)

    Dallas Opera
    Nov 2023 - Nov 2023

    • Another Grammy winner and cast member from the 2015 Everest production was Cooke, who sang Sylvie with a refined mezzo-soprano. Enhancing the opera’s realistic approach, her acting was subdued, her fears and confusion free of melodrama.

  • The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (Laurene)

    San Francisco Opera
    Sep 2023 - Oct 2023

    • Mezzo-Sopran Sasha Cooke als Laurene hat die Rolle auch bei der Uraufführung in Santa Fe vertreten. Sie ist die Frau im Leben von Jobs, die durch ihre Wärme, Empathie und Zuneigung als einzige mit ganzem Herzen zu ihm durchdringt. Sie allein vermag ihn zumindest zeitweise zu erden und ihm ein Bewusstsein seiner schweren Krankheit und seines frühen, bevorstehenden Todes zu vermitteln. Der warme Mezzo von Sasha Cooke ergreift die Zuhörer. Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as Laurene also performed the role at the premiere in Santa Fe. She is the woman in Jobs' life who is the only one who gets through to him wholeheartedly through her warmth, empathy and affection. She alone is able to ground him, at least temporarily, and make him aware of his serious illness and his early, impending death. Sasha Cooke's warm mezzo grips the listener.

    • The outstanding vocal performance was by Sasha Cooke singing Laurene, the wife of Jobs, and who appeared in an early scene to hear the younger Jobs lecture. Cooke sang with body and conviction. She was easy to believe. Her voice convinced with its lustrous sound, its rich and ardent low registers as well as its highs. She was a solid and warm counterpoint to the ever-moving, ever-stimulated Jobs. Her performance resonated with what remained of humanity in the midst of the frenzy of electronic life.

    • Laurene, whom mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke brought to life with stirring emotional warmth as well as grit, is swathed in radiant harmonies and soaring, neo-Romantic lyricism.

    • Baritone John Moore and mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke made a dramatic, convincing couple as Steve and Laurene Powell Jobs. They led the vibrant cast through four decades of scenes set in Silicon Valley, Yosemite Valley, Oregon, and the Santa Cruz mountains, and the performance was followed by an 80s after-party in the lower-level restaurant of the SF Opera House.

    • Cooke delivered Laurene’s summation of Steve’s many contradictions, his cruelty and genius, with gorgeous inflections to her distinctively pure sound.

    • As his wife Laurene, Cooke demonstrated tenderness and expressiveness in the role, her beautiful voice soared over those “oceanic harmonies” particularly in her almost-Wagnerian soliloquy in Scene 16, where Laurene confronts Jobs and persuaded him to accept his illness and mortality. She was equally mesmerizing in the quiet final “Memorial Service” scene, where she reminded the audience to “look up and look around.”

    • Another Grammy winner and cast member from the 2015 Everest production was Cooke, who sang Sylvie with a refined mezzo-soprano. Enhancing the opera’s realistic approach, her acting was subdued, her fears and confusion free of melodrama.

    • Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke is one of two artists (along with Wei Wu) that created their present roles at the opera’s 2017 world premiere. Since then, the opera has been revised, with most of revisions relating to its presentation of Steve Jobs’ wife, Laurene, as an equal partner in her marriage to Steve. Cooke had drawn praise for her original Santa Fe performances. As Steve’s equal partner in marriage, she was even more impactful in the current production, both vocally and dramatically.

  • Mendelssohn Elijah

    Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival with Alan Gilbert
    Jul 2023

    • Die drei anderen Solo-Partien waren ebenbürtig fein gecastet worden: Christina Landshamers strahlender, lyrischer Sopran mischte sich bestens mit dem runden, schlanken Mezzo von Sasha Cooke. The three other solo roles were equally finely cast: Christina Landshamer's radiant, lyrical soprano blended perfectly with Sasha Cooke's round, slender mezzo.

  • Elgar Dream of Gerontius

    Wiener Konzerthaus
    Mar 2023

    • In den anderen Rollen die amerikanische Mezzosopranistin Sasha Cooke als gar nicht weltfremder, sondern fast menschlicher Engel und der profunde britische Bariton Roderick Williams in der Doppelrolle als Priester und Todesengel. In the other roles, the American mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as an almost human angel and the profound British baritone Roderick Williams in the double role of priest and angel of death.