Mahler: Das klagende Lied / Cheltenham Festival 2026
“Mahler entrusts a great deal of the narrative to his alto soloist. Claudia Huckle rose to the occasion splendidly. Her singing per se, was excellent; her voice was ideally focused, and her diction was very clear. I recall that it was a mantra of the distinguished tenor John Mitchinson that the primary responsibility of a singer is to ‘tell the story’. No one listening to Huckle tonight would have been disappointed in her narrative engagement. Not only did she tell the story most expressively with her voice but also there was visible engagement with the audience. “
Seen and Heard International
Amastre: Serse / Academy of Ancient Music 2026
“Claudia Huckle as Amastre – good to have a velvety contralto offsetting more sopranoid voices.”
The Arts Desk
“Claudia Huckle has the most amazingly beautiful voice that can carry so man emotions, and her act one “Se cangio spoglia” was a masterclass in agility and pitching.”
Opera Today
Delius: A Mass of Life / BBC Symphony Orchestra at BBC Proms 2025
“Claudia Hucke’s voice soared as freely and powerfully as a bird of prey.”
The Arts Desk
“…ripe mezzo-soprano (almost contralto) richness from Claudia Huckle.”
The Classical Source
“Each of the soloists was expressive and thoroughly communicative with Claudia Huckle voluptuous in her soliloquy to Zarathustra.”
Opera Today
“Claudia Huckle edged the Delian sound with a sensuous gleam.”
Seen and Heard International
“As for the soloists, Claudia Huckle’s thrilling deep mezzo-soprano was the standout voice.”
The Telegraph
Prince Orlofsky: Die Fledermaus / The Grange Festival 2025
“Claudia Huckle cooed ‘Chacun à son goût’ with ambiguous allure.”
Opera
“Claudia Huckle actually plays the part as a gloriously flamboyant, deliciously androgynous trans figure, as keen to show off her luscious bosom as she is to parade her plummy chest notes.”
Operalogue
“Still, it’d be churlish to grumble when you’ve got an Orlovsky as ripe as Claudia Huckle…”
The Spectator
“Claudia Huckle is a credibly princely Russian oligarch with a certain sexual ambivalence…”
The Stage
Delius: A Mass of Life / LAWO CD
“…praise, too, for contralto Claudia Huckle, who brings a gloriously dusky resonance to ‘O Zarathustra!’”
Gramophone
“Claudia Huckle is ardently expressive in her soliloquy to Zarathustra.”
MusicWeb International
First Norn: Götterdämmerung / London Philharmonic Orchestra 2024
“The Rhinemaidens, vassals and Norns, among whom contralto Claudia Huckle’s lustrous First Norn stood out, all sang from the choral benches at the back, but were never allowed to be overwhelmed.”
The Guardian
“Claudia Huckle [was] mesmerising…as the prologue’s First Norn.”
inews
“And what a way to begin. The first chord was supremely together, and the First Norn (contralto Claudia Huckle) excelled in her first line, ‘Welch’ Licht leuchtet dort?’ (‘What light is gleaming yonder?).”
Seen and Heard International
“Three fabulous Norns – Claudia Huckle, Claire Barnett-Jones and Evelina Dobračeva – knitted and nattered their way through the opening half hour”
Bachtrack
“…there was a good trio of Norns, especially Claudia Huckle and Claire Barnett-Jones.”
Financial Times
“The trios of Norns (Claudia Huckle, Claire Barnett-Jones, Evelina Dobračeva) and Rhinemaidens (Alina Adamski, Alexandra Lowe, Angharad Lyddon) were superbly blended.”
The Telegraph
Galatea: Acis by the River (Aci, Galatea e Polifemo) / London Handel Festival 2024
“Claudia Huckle’s commanding contralto exuded calm authority but never sounded so queenly that she lost, especially in the upper range of numbers such as “Benché tuoni”, the tender vulnerability that Polifemo seeks to exploit”
The Arts Desk.
“…this is also the best performance of a Handel opera in years, with three outstanding singer-actors. Close your eyes and just listen. Mary Bevan’s airy purity of line beautifies every aria from Acis, while contralto Claudia Huckle is thrillingly forceful as Galatea, and baritone Callum Thorpe’s Polypheme makes the earth shake: while stumbling through the filmmakers’ minefield, this valiant trio don’t miss a beat.”
Inews
“The cast is excellent. Mary Bevan and Claudia Huckle are Aci and his/her lover, Bevan’s soprano gleaming, Huckle’s mezzo lusciously expressive. Polifemo is the bass Callum Thorpe, his voice imposing in the villainous bluster and moving in his moments of despair.”
The Guardian
“Claudia Huckle, a limpid contralto, sang her music exquisitely.”
Opera
“What lifts the evening is the wit, passion and elegance of the musical performances, whether it’s Bevan’s steely sweet soprano, the mountain-stream vividness of Huckle’s contralto or the astonishing, cavernous range of Callum Thorpe, who plays Polifemo.”
The Times
“It helped that the three protagonists here were all world-class singers with a total mastery of Handelian style.”
The Telegraph
“Mary Bevan (Aci), Claudia Huckle (Galatea) and Callum Thorpe (Polifemo) projected their glorious music with a vocal bravura that took the breath away.”
Operalogue
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (autograph piano version) / Champs Hill Records 2023
“Here, perfect technique, deep expression and unique vocal personalities combine in the singing of Scottish tenor Nicky Spence and Anglo-German contralto Claudia Huckle, who’s done so many distinguished things around the world yet not enough in the UK – and who writes such a lovely foreword in the booklet to compliment conductor and pianist Justin Brown’s eloquent words on the edition chosen and Richard Stokes’s insights into the music…We have to hear both these singers in the orchestral version – but in the meantime how much there is to admire here in the mesh of voices and piano.”
BBC Music Magazine
“Certainly, there’s plenty to admire in the performance, beginning with Nicky Spence’s ardent and sturdy performances of the tenor songs, distinguished by his usual highly engaged and engaging delivery. The project, though, originated with contralto Claudia Huckle – a response to lockdown and the chance it gave her to contemplate nature anew and finally take the score for Das Lied off the shelf. Her voice is a superbly rich and seductive instrument with true contralto colour. Her ‘Der Abschied’ is, as it should be, a moving culmination of the album … this is a welcome recording that will, one hopes, bring a new audience to this rewarding version of this wonderful work.”
Gramophone
“Claudia Huckle, Nicky Spence and Justin Brown’s minimalist Mahler wants for nothing. In a new recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (Champs Hill), usually for huge orchestra and two soloists but here in the piano autograph version, the contralto Claudia Huckle and tenor Nicky Spence, with pianist Justin Brown, capture all the vitality and intensity of this orchestral song cycle, completed in 1909: from the first entry of the tenor, who hurtles in on high with his Drinking Song of the Earth’s Sorrow, to the infinite tenderness of the contralto’s ‘Der Abschied’…..Huckle had the idea to do the piano version during lockdown, feeling that post-pandemic life might never allow her to sing the work in concert. Let’s hope she does. She is perfectly suited.”
The Guardian
“…Furthermore, this is an outstanding performance by any standards. Huckle has a rich, dark contralto voice and a rare way with the text. Accordingly, she’s deeply inside these songs, capturing their combination of valedictory wistfulness and youthful enthusiasm, while clearly identifying with the composer’s deep inner connection to the natural world. With only piano to support her, she can focus on the storytelling, but she never lets the words overpower the lyrical importance of the vocal line. Another bonus of the slimmed down piano version is that for once we hear a singer sail through the frantic passages of ‘Von der schönheit’ without the usual desperate gasping for breath.”
Limelight – Editor’s Choice
“Huckle’s intense and moving performance brings us far deeper into the emotional world of these songs, however. As she writes in her liner notes, “One thing I realised during that beautiful spring of 2020 was that if I never performed again, my greatest regret would be never having sung Das Lied von der Erde.” Her deep commitment shines through in every bar.”
The Whole Note
