Amanda Forsythe

Last updated

Amanda Forsythe (born 1976) is an American light lyric soprano who is particularly admired for her interpretations of baroque music and the works of Rossini. Forsythe has received continued critical acclaim from many publications including Opera News , The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe .

Contents

Early life and education

Amanda Forsythe was born in 1976 in New York City, with a sister, and grew up on Roosevelt Island and later in Lloyd Harbor, New York, where she graduated from Cold Spring Harbor High School. She entered Vassar College in 1994 where she initially studied marine biology. Forsythe graduated from Vassar in 1998 with a degree in music [1] and went on to graduate studies in vocal performance at the New England Conservatory of Music. While there she was a student of Mary Ann Hart and Susan Clickner. Forsythe was not accepted into the conservatory's opera workshop program, so the soprano ended up seeking performance opportunities elsewhere while continuing to study at NECM. Forsythe ended up performing in a production of Cavalli's Giasone at Harvard University. This production impacted Forsythe's life positively in both professional and personal ways. The opera introduced her to her husband, conductor Edward Elwyn Jones (they met while doing this opera and married in the summer of 2005) and Martin Pearlman, the director of Boston Baroque. Pearlman came to one of the opera's performances and was so intrigued by Forsythe's performance that he asked her to come and audition. Forsythe has subsequently been cast in numerous productions with the company. [2]

In 2003, she was the winner of the George London Foundation Awards and the second-place winner [3] of the Liederkranz Foundation competition. Forsythe received an honorable mention in the 2005 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Awards. She was also a vocal fellow at Tanglewood Music Center for two summers and has apprenticed at Chicago's Ravinia Festival and the Caramoor Festival. At Tanglewood, she originated the role of young Margarita in the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar and replaced Dawn Upshaw in the lead role for one performance. [2]

Career

Forsythe made her professional debut in 2001 as Proserpina/Ninfa in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo with Boston Baroque.

In the 2002–2003 season, Forsythe performed the role of Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Hudson Opera Theatre. [4] She also performed the role of Amore in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria with Boston Baroque. [5] [6]

In the 2003–2004 season, Forsythe performed Bach's Wedding and Coffee Cantatas and the role of Oberto in Handel's Alcina with Boston Baroque. [2] [7] She also made her debut at the Caramoor Festival in two productions created by the Handel and Haydn Society. These included the role of Cendrillon in Pauline Viardot's Cendrillon , and as Un Trojano in Gluck's Paride ed Elena . [8]

In the 2004–2005 season, Forsythe performed the role of Serpina in Pergolesi's La serva padrona with Boston Baroque. [9]

In the 2005–2006 season, Forsythe made her debut with Opera Boston and Opera Unlimited as the Angel in Peter Eötvös's Angels in America . She also sang various roles in Boston Baroque's production of Purcell's The Fairy-Queen , including the role of the Chinese woman who sings the famous aria "Hark how the echoing air". [10]

In the 2006–2007 season, Forsythe made her debut at the Boston Early Music Festival performing the role of Aglaure in the North American premiere of Lully's Psyché . She also recorded the role in the landmark first recording of this opera. In addition, she sang the role of Vagaus in Boston Baroque's production of Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha triumphans . [11] She also sang Handel's Messiah with the Charlotte Symphony and Apollo's Fire. [12]

In the 2007–2008 season, Forsythe made her European debut singing Corinna in Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. She also made her debuts at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and the Bayerische Staatsoper as Dalinda in Handel's Ariodante , and returned to Opera Boston to perform the role of Iris in Handel's Semele . She also reprised the role of Young Margarita in Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar with the Calgary Philharmonic. In addition, Forsythe will perform Mahler's 2nd Symphony with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico and will also make her debut at La Fenice in a concert of Rossini arias. [11]

In the 2008–2009 season, Forsythe is scheduled to sing Rosalia in Rossini's L'equivoco stravagante and in a recital with Joyce DiDonato at the Rossini Opera Festival. She will also perform the role of Atalanta in Handel's Xerxes with Boston Baroque, Venus in Blow's Venus and Adonis at the winter Boston Early Music Festival, Barbarina in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and Ellenia in Christoph Graupner's Antiochus und Stratonica at the summer Boston Early Music Festival. Additionally, Forsythe will appear in concerts with the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, Apollo's Fire: the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, and at the Festival Casals. [13]

Ms. Forsythe can be heard as Minerve and La Grande Pretresse on the Boston Early Music Festival recording of Lully's Thésée , a nominee for the 50th Grammy awards and Eurydice in Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphèe aux Enfers H 488.

Forsythe has also performed at the Harvard Early Music Society and with the Masterworks Chorale, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Florestan Project, the Omaha Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, and the Boston Chamber Music Society among other organizations. [14]

In the 2017-2018 season, Forsythe performed the role of Iole in Handel's Hercules with the Handel and Haydn Society.

Opera roles

Related Research Articles

Osvaldo Noé Golijov is an Argentine composer of classical music and music professor, known for his vocal and orchestral work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathleen Battle</span> American operatic soprano (born 1948)

Kathleen Deanna Battle is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio, Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid-1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s, until her eventual dismissal from the Metropolitan Opera in 1994. She later has focused on recording and the concert stage. After a 22-year absence from the Met, Battle performed a concert of spirituals at the Metropolitan Opera House in November 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cecilia Bartoli</span> Italian opera singer

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.

Susanna Phillips (Huntington) is an American singer who has sung leading lyric soprano roles at leading American and international opera houses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ewa Podleś</span> Polish coloratura contralto singer (born 1952)

Ewa Podleś is a Polish coloratura contralto singer who has had an active international career both on the opera stage and in recital. She is known for the agility of her voice and a vocal range which spans more than three octaves.

Margaret Anne Marshall OBE is a Scottish soprano.

Ainadamaror An Opera in Three Images is the first opera by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. The libretto was written by American playwright David Henry Hwang and translated from English into Spanish by the composer. It premiered in Tanglewood on 10 August 2003 and, after major revisions, the new version was given its premiere at the Santa Fe Opera on 30 July 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alisa Weilerstein</span> Musical artist

Alisa Weilerstein is an American classical cellist. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arleen Auger</span> American coloratura soprano (1939-1993)

Joyce Arleen Auger was an American coloratura soprano, known for her interpretations of works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Monteverdi, Mozart, and Schubert. She won a posthumous Grammy Award for "Best Classical Vocal Performance" in 1994.

Arianna Zukerman is an American lyric soprano who has performed with some of the world's finest orchestras and opera companies. Her voice was described in The Washington Post as "remarkable" combining the "range, warmth and facility of a Rossini mezzo with shimmering, round high notes and exquisite pianissimos."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beverly Wolff</span> American mezzo-soprano

Beverly Wolff was an American mezzo-soprano who had an active career in concerts and operas from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. She performed a broad repertoire which encompassed operatic and concert works in many languages and from a variety of musical periods. She was a champion of new works, notably premiering compositions by Leonard Bernstein, Gian Carlo Menotti, Douglas Moore, and Ned Rorem among other American composers. She also performed in a number of rarely heard baroque operas by George Frideric Handel with the New York City Opera (NYCO), the Handel Society of New York, and at the Kennedy Center Handel Festivals.

José Lemos is a Brazilian countertenor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce DiDonato</span> American mezzo-soprano

Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty Allen</span> American singer (1927–2009)

Betty Allen was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active international singing career during the 1950s through the 1970s. In the latter part of her career her voice acquired a contralto-like darkening, which can be heard on her recording of Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky with conductor Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. She was known for her collaborations with American composers, such as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Ned Rorem, and Virgil Thomson among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camilla Tilling</span> Swedish soprano in opera and concert (born 1971)

Camilla Viktoria Rydh, best known as Camilla Tilling, is a Swedish soprano in opera and concert.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathan Berg</span> Canadian opera singer

Nathan Berg is an operatic bass-baritone. He is a Grammy Award winner, and four-time Grammy nominated, a Juno award winner and 2014 Juno Awards nominee

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Meade</span> American opera singer

Angela Meade is an American operatic soprano.

Ying Fang is a Chinese operatic soprano. A principal soprano at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan, she won the Golden Bell Award at the Guangdong Singing Competition in China in 2009, first prize at the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition in 2013, and the Lincoln Center Segal Award in 2015. Her performances have been featured on the television program Great Performances at the Met and in movie theaters for the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD. In 2015 Opera News stated that "Ying Fang sings with exquisite simplicity and directness. The twenty-eight-year-old soprano never forces her sound or indulges in coloratura 'flash.' She is incapable of vulgarity; her dignity is unshakeable, and her powers of persuasion are sovereign."

Paula Murrihy is an Irish operatic mezzo-soprano who has made an international career. A member of the Oper Frankfurt, she has appeared also in Europe and the US, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Santa Fe Opera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heidi Stober</span> American opera singer

Heidi Stober is an American operatic soprano who has performed leading roles in major opera houses internationally, including the Dutch National Opera, the Garsington Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the Municipal Theatre of Santiago, the Semperoper, and the Vienna State Opera. She has been particularly active with the Houston Grand Opera where she has performed in more than a dozen operas since 2004, including the world premieres of Daniel Catán's Salsipuedes: a Tale of Love, War and Anchovies (2004), Mark Adamo's Lysistrata (2005), and Ricky Ian Gordon's The House without a Christmas Tree (2017). She has also performed in more than ten operas with the San Francisco Opera since 2010. Since 2008 she has been a resident artist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin where she has primarily performed roles from the lyric soprano repertoire. Also active as a concert soprano on the international stage, she has performed with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest among other orchestras. She is particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of George Frideric Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

References

  1. ↑ "AAVC – Events" . Retrieved 9 February 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 Dyer, Richard (31 December 2004). "Soprano Amanda Forsythe voices her love of opera". Boston.com. Retrieved 9 February 2017– via The Boston Globe.
  3. ↑ "Scholarship Award Winner List 1987–2013" (PDF). liederkranzny.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 January 2020. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  4. ↑ "Hudson Opera Theatre – Productions 2002–2003". Archived from the original on 2008-05-12. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
  5. ↑ "Boston Baroque". Archived from the original on 2008-05-09. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
  6. ↑ "Artist Profile – Helen Sykes Artists Management". Archived from the original on 2007-08-16. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
  7. ↑ "Concert Reviews". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
  8. ↑ "Handel and Haydn Society". Archived from the original on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
  9. ↑ Dyer, Richard (2 April 2004). "Boston Baroque, Opera Boston to unite in 'Alceste'". Boston.com. Retrieved 9 February 2017– via The Boston Globe.
  10. ↑ "Bmop :: Opera Unlimited Presents The North American Premiere Of Angels In America". Archived from the original on 2007-04-09. Retrieved 2008-05-24.
  11. 1 2 Opera Boston "Semele" program [ permanent dead link ]
  12. ↑ "Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra" . Retrieved 9 February 2017.
  13. ↑ "Amanda Forsythe • Upcoming Engagements" . Retrieved 9 February 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
  14. ↑ "Amanda Forsythe • Recent Engagements" . Retrieved 9 February 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.