Allan Ulrich [San Francisco Chronicle, 31 March 2010]

Few singers in recent years have beguiled San Francisco audiences as instantly as Alice Coote. The English mezzo-soprano bowed brilliantly at the San Francisco Opera in 2002 as Ruggiero in “Alcina” and returned in 2008, earning comparable acclaim as Idamante in “Idomeneo.” On both occasions, Coote proved an artist of enormous conviction, as well as one of the world’s leading operatic interpreters of women-playing-men, what are called trouser roles.