Christa Ludwig was a German mezzo-soprano and sometime dramatic soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, lieder, oratorio, and other major religious works like masses, passions, and solos in symphonic literature. Her performing career spanned almost half a century, from the late 1940s until the early 1990s.
Cecilia BartoliOMRI is an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist. She is best known for her interpretations of the music of Bellini, Handel, Mozart, Rossini and Vivaldi, as well as for her performances of lesser-known music from the Baroque and Classical period. She is known for singing both soprano and mezzo roles.
Teresa Berganza VargasOAXS was a Spanish mezzo-soprano. She is most closely associated with roles such as Rossini's Rosina and La Cenerentola, and later Bizet's Carmen, admired for her technical virtuosity, musical intelligence, and beguiling stage presence. Berganza was a key singer in a Rossini renaissance which explored less performed operas and restored the leading roles to mezzo register. She appeared as Zerlina in Joseph Losey's Don Giovanni film in 1979. She participated in the opening ceremonies of the Expo '92 in Seville and of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
A breeches role is one in which an actress appears in male clothing. Breeches, tight-fitting knee-length pants, were the standard male garment at the time these roles were introduced. The theatrical term travesti covers both this sort of cross-dressing and also that of male actors dressing as female characters. Both are part of the long history of cross-dressing in music and opera and later in film and television.
Fiorenza Cossotto is an Italian operatic mezzo-soprano.
A soubrette is a female minor stock character in opera and theatre, often a pert lady's maid. By extension, the term can refer generally to any saucy or flirtatious young woman. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy".
Ruth Ann Swenson is an American soprano who is renowned for her coloratura roles.
Irena Petkova is a Bulgarian opera singer. The mezzo-soprano Irena Petkova was born in Bourgas, Bulgaria. She graduated from the Pancho Vladigerov State Music Academy, Sofia under professor Lilly Stefanova.
Alexandrina Pendatchanska is a Bulgarian operatic soprano. Increasingly, she is known professionally as Alex Penda.
Susanne Mentzer is an American operatic mezzo-soprano. She is best known for singing trouser roles, such as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo, Octavian in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier and the composer in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, as well as other music of Mozart, Strauss, Rossini, Berlioz and Mahler.
Tara Erraught is an Irish mezzo-soprano, a graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM).
Wilke te Brummelstroete is a Dutch mezzo-soprano. She has recorded Bach cantatas with John Eliot Gardiner and appeared as the valkyrie Siegrune in Wagner's Die Walküre at the Bayreuth Festival.
Alison Margaret Browner is an Irish mezzo-soprano opera singer.
Serena Malfi is an Italian operatic mezzo-soprano.
Sophie Koch is a French operatic mezzo-soprano who made an international career, performing Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Royal Opera House, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss at the Semperoper in Dresden, and Charlotte in Massenet's Werther at the Paris Opera, among others. Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss became her signature role. She has also performed in concert and recital, and made recordings.
Svetlina Stoyanova is a Bulgarian operatic mezzo-soprano.
Jennifer Holloway is an American operatic mezzo-soprano and soprano who has made an international career performing at leading opera houses and festivals. She began as a mezzo-soprano singing roles such as Adalgisa in Bellini's Norma, and moved to soprano roles such as Salome and Grete Graumann in Schreker's Der ferne Klang.
Gaëlle Arquez is a French operatic mezzo-soprano.
Vasilisa Berzhanskaya is a Russian operatic mezzo-soprano. Her repertoire encompasses roles of the Italian bel canto of Rossini and Bellini, Mozart, Baroque music such as Vivaldi and Purcell, and roles from Russian opera, by composers such as Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. Though Berzhanskaya is a mezzo-soprano, in the past she has sung roles ranging from dramatic coloratura soprano to contralto. As such, she has been described as possessing "a huge vocal range in which she display[s] impeccable coloratura."
Silvia Hauer is a German operatic mezzo-soprano. A member of the ensemble of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden since 2015, she has performed leading roles such as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Rosina in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Bizet's Carmen, and the title role in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. Her concert repertoire includes Oskar Gottlieb Blarr's Jesus-Passion and Verdi's Requiem.
