Faye Robinson (born November 2, 1943) is an African-American soprano.
A native of Houston, Robinson received her bachelor's degree from Bennett College [1] before beginning her musical studies at Texas Southern University under Ruth Stewart; [2] further studies followed at North Texas State University [3] and in New York with Ellen Faull, after which she debuted as Micaëla at the New York City Opera in 1972. While with the company she also sang Liù, Violetta, and the Queen of Shemakha in Le Coq d'Or . [2] She auditioned for the San Francisco Opera, receiving first prize. [4] For Washington Civic Opera she performed as Violetta and Juliette in 1973; for Opera/South she was Desdemona in 1973 and Adina in 1974. 1975 found her in Aix-en-Provence, where she appeared to great acclaim in a double-bill of The Impresario and La serva padrona ; that same year she returned to her hometown to essay the title role in Lucrezia Borgia . For Buenos Aires, in 1980, she sang the three soprano roles in Les contes d'Hoffmann ; in 1981 she returned to Mozart, performing Konstanze in Frankfurt and Elettra for the Schwetzingen Festival. In 1982 she debuts the title role in Luisa Miller at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux. Her debut with the Paris Opera, in which she reprised the role of Juliette, came in 1982; in 1991 she once again sang Elettra, this time for Amsterdam. [2]
Active as well as a concert singer, Robinson has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. [5] She has also been associated with contemporary music throughout her career; in 1996 she premiered George Walker's Pulitzer Prize for Music-winning Lilacs with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, [6] and she has specialized in the works of Michael Tippett. [2] Her recording of Lilacs has been released by Summit Records. [6]
Robinson's voice has been described as "flexible" and "silver-toned", and her stage presence as "charming". [2] She has taught at the University of Arizona. [7]
Renée Lynn Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In June 2023, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Fleming would be one of the five artists recognized at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors, which she received in December 2023. Other notable honors won by Fleming have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Unusual among artists whose careers began in opera, Fleming has achieved name recognition beyond the classical music world. In May, 2023, Fleming was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health. On April 9, 2024, Penguin Random House published Fleming's anthology Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, a collection of essays about the health benefits of music and the arts, by scientists from leading research institutions, practitioners, educators, arts leaders, musicians, artists and writers.
Lili Chookasian was an American contralto of Armenian ethnicity, who appeared with many of the world's major symphony orchestras and opera houses. She began her career in the 1940s as a concert singer but did not draw wider acclaim until she began singing opera in her late thirties. She arose as one of the world's leading contraltos during the 1960s and 1970s, and notably had a long and celebrated career at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1962 through 1986. She was admired for her sonorous, focused tone as well as her excellent musicianship. She often chose, against tradition, to sing oratorios from memory.
Frances Yeend was an American classical soprano who had an active international career as a concert and opera singer during the 1940s through the 1960s. She had a long and fruitful association with the New York City Opera (NYCO) between 1948 and 1958, after which she joined the roster of principal sopranos at the Metropolitan Opera where she sang between 1961 and 1963. She also had an extensive concert career, particularly in the United States. By 1963 she had sung in more than 200 orchestral concerts in North American with major symphonies like the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra among others.
Susanna Phillips (Huntington) is an American singer who has sung leading lyric soprano roles at leading American and international opera houses.
Margaret Anne Marshall OBE is a Scottish soprano.
Cheryl Studer is an American dramatic soprano who has sung at many of the world's foremost opera houses. Studer has performed more than eighty roles ranging from the dramatic repertoire to roles more commonly associated with lyric sopranos and coloratura sopranos, and, in her late stage, mezzo-sopranos. She is particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner.
Laura Claycomb is an American lyric coloratura soprano singer.
Licia Albanese was an Italian-born American operatic soprano. Noted especially for her portrayals of the lyric heroines of Verdi and Puccini, Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera from 1940 to 1966. She also made many recordings and was chairwoman of The Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, which is dedicated to assisting young artists and singers.
Alessandra Marc, born Judith Borden is an American dramatic soprano who has appeared at many of the world's opera houses and orchestras. Marc is particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, music of the Second Viennese School, and the title role in Puccini's Turandot.
Patricia Lynn Racette is an American operatic soprano. A winner of the Richard Tucker Award in 1998, she has been a regular presence at major opera houses internationally. Racette has enjoyed long-term partnerships with the San Francisco Opera, where she has been a regular performer since 1989, and with the Metropolitan Opera, where she has performed since 1995. Also active on the concert stage, Racette has appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She also received the award for Best Opera Recording for her performance in the Los Angeles Opera's production of The Ghosts of Versailles at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.
Mary Dunleavy is an American soprano who has performed with major opera companies and orchestras around the world.
Hong Hei-Kyung, often known in the west as Hei-Kyung Hong, is a South Korean operatic lyric soprano.
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."
Alexandrina Pendatchanska is a Bulgarian operatic soprano. Increasingly, she is known professionally as Alex Penda.
Wendy White is an American mezzo-soprano who has had an active international singing career in operas and concerts since the late 1970s. She has performed annually with the Metropolitan Opera since her debut with the company in 1989, and as of April 2011 has appeared in a total of 505 performances at the Met.
Sigutė Stonytė is a Lithuanian soprano and professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Marina Rebeka is a Latvian soprano, active on both opera and concert stages. Associated with Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, she performs primarily in the 19th-century Italian and French repertoire, most notably works by Gioachino Rossini, in addition to Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni, another frequent role.
Roberta Alexander is an American operatic soprano. She began her career as a lyric soprano in 1975 and spent the next three decades performing principal roles with opera houses internationally. Particularly celebrated for her performances of Mozart heroines, she was a leading soprano at the Metropolitan Opera from 1983 to 1991. In addition to principal Mozart roles like Countess Almaviva, Elettra, Fiordiligi, and Donna Elvira, she had particular success with the parts of Mimì in Puccini's La bohème and the title role in Janáček's Jenůfa. More recently she has performed secondary character roles on stage, including performances at the Grand Théâtre de Provence in 2013, La Scala in 2014, and La Monnaie in 2015. She performed the Fifth Maid in Strauss's Elektra at the Met in 2016 and Curra in Verdi's La forza del destino at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 2019.
Iwona Sobotka is a Polish soprano and Grand Prix Winner of the Queen Elizabeth Music Competition.
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.