Jennifer Aylmer (born 1972) is an American operatic soprano noted for significant performances with the Metropolitan Opera, [1] New York City Opera, and as an oratorio soloist with major ensembles such as the National Symphony, and the Oratorio Society of New York. [2]
Highlights of her varied career include performance of Julie Taymor's production of Die Zauberflöte (with baritone Nathan Gunn), and numerous contemporary operatic roles, such as the premiere of the role of Amy in Mark Adamo's Little Women (with Joyce DiDonato and Daniel Belcher) at the Houston Grand Opera, premiere of Bella in Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy (with Nathan Gunn and Patricia Racette), and performance of Stella in André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire at the Austin Lyric Opera. She has received critical praise from major newspapers including the New York Times, hailing her "awesome accuracy," and the Chicago Sun Times, describing her as "dazzling," "regal," and "fatally attractive." [3]
Alymer graduated from the Eastman School of Music, the Juilliard Opera Center, [4] and received her Masters in Vocal Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College. In 1993, she studied at the Music Academy of the West. [5] She currently serves as a member of the voice faculty at Carnegie Mellon University
Samson and Delilah, Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It was first performed in Weimar at the Grossherzogliches Theater on 2 December 1877 in a German translation.
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, and again in May 2024.
James Conlon is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of Los Angeles Opera and principal conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was an American mezzo-soprano. She was noted for her performances of both Baroque era and contemporary works. Her career path to becoming a singer was unconventional – formerly a professional violist, Lieberson did not shift her full-time focus to singing until she was in her thirties.
Evelyn Shulman Lear was an American operatic soprano. Between 1959 and 1992, she appeared in more than forty operatic roles, appeared with every major opera company in the United States and won a Grammy Award in 1966. She was well known for her musical versatility, having sung all three main female roles in Der Rosenkavalier. Lear was also known for her work on 20th century pieces by Robert Ward, Alban Berg, Marvin David Levy, Rudolf Kelterborn and Giselher Klebe. She was married to the American bass-baritone Thomas Stewart until his death in 2006.
Martina Arroyo is an American operatic soprano who had a major international opera career from the 1960s through the 1980s. She was part of the first generation of black opera singers to achieve wide success.
Kelli Christine O'Hara is an American actress and singer, most known for her work on the Broadway and opera stages.
Ashley Brown is an American singer and actress who is best known for playing the titular character in the United States national tour and Broadway productions of Mary Poppins.
Nathan T. Gunn is an American operatic baritone who performs regularly around the world. He is an alumnus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he is currently a professor of voice.
Susan Elizabeth Futral is an American coloratura soprano who has won acclaim throughout the United States as well as in Europe, South America, and Japan.
Marthe Keller is a Swiss actress. She is perhaps best known for her role in the film Marathon Man (1976), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Edward Barnes is an American composer and producer.
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.
Jennifer Larmore is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer, particularly noted for her performances in coloratura and bel canto roles which she has performed in the world's major opera houses. She has been a professor at the Music College of Seoul National University since March 2021.
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.
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.
Caterina Galli was an Italian operatic mezzo-soprano. She first rose to fame in England in the 1740s and early 1750s where she was particularly admired for her performances in the works of George Frideric Handel. She then enjoyed success in her native country in the 1750s and 1760s, before returning to England, where she remained active as a performer up through 1797.
Gene Scheer is an American songwriter, librettist and lyricist. He is the brother of Samuel Scheer, who is an English teacher at Windsor High School and a part-time musician.
Kathleen Kim is an American operatic coloratura soprano. Her repertoire includes roles in operas by Handel, Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi, and Offenbach, among others, as well as in oratorios such as the Messiah and sacred works such as Mozart's Great Mass in C minor.
Cold Mountain is an American opera in two acts and an epilogue, with music by Jennifer Higdon and the libretto by Gene Scheer, based on Charles Frazier's 1997 novel of the same name. The opera is a co-commission between Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia and the Minnesota Opera, in collaboration with North Carolina Opera. The opera received its world premiere at Santa Fe Opera on 1 August 2015. This production coincided with the 150th anniversary of the ending of the American Civil War. Opera Philadelphia gave its first performance of the opera, in a slightly revised form, on 5 February 2016. North Carolina Opera gave the opera its home state premiere on 28 September 2017. The Minnesota Opera staged the opera in 2018 as part of its New Works Initiative. The Virginia Opera also featured performances of the opera during February 2021 as part of its themed "Love is a Battlefield" 2020–2021 season.