Melody Wilson

mezzo-soprano

With her warm, richly timbred voice, mezzo-soprano Melody Wilson has quickly made a name for herself in the US and Europe.

In 2023, she performs a staged version of the oratorio Sanctuary Road with the Penn Square Music Festival, as well as Fenena with Washington Concert Opera. Subsequently, she joins the roster of the Metropolitan Opera to cover the role of Cousin Blanche in Terence Blanchard’s Champion, returns to Seattle Opera for Fricka in Das Rheingold, and makes her debut as Mary in Der fliegende Holländer with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Concert appearances will include the world premiere of Bodies On the Line by Martin Rokeach with Oakland Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth with Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra, and in 2024, Rossweisse in Die Walküre with Dallas Symphony.

In 2022, she sang Olga (Eugene Onegin) with Dallas Symphony under Maestro Fabio Luisi, Principessa di Bouillon (Adriana Lecouvreur) with Baltimore Opera, Mrs. Herring with the Princeton Festival, and Meg Page with Union Avenue Opera. She also covered two roles in two productions at San Francisco Opera: Charmian in the world premiere of John Adams’ Anthony and Cleopatra as well as Olga (Eugene Onegin). She also made her debut with the San Francisco Symphony in Brahms’ Alto-Rhapsody, performed a recital with Oakland Symphony as well as Sanctuary Road with Chautauqua Symphony.

Her engagements in 2020 and 2021 included her company debuts with Seattle Opera as Olga, with Indianapolis Opera as Suzuki, with Cincinnati Opera as Mercédès as well as her return to St. Louis for Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ New Works, Bold Voices program (3 commissioned operas). On the concert stage, she performed Beethoven’s Ninth with Kalamazoo Symphony.

Other recent career highlights: Addie (Regina by Mark Blitzstein) with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Fenena (Nabucco), Linda (Lost In The Stars), and Mrs. Miller (Doubt by Douglas J. Cuomo) with Union Avenue Opera, garnering her a nomination for the St. Louis Theater Circle Awards in the category “Outstanding achievement in opera” for the latter role. No stranger to contemporary repertoire, she performed in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles with Opera Delaware and Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she also covered Denyce Graves in the role of Emelda in the world premiere of Champion.

In Europe, Melody Wilson sang in the world premiere of Mondparsifal Alpha 1-8 (Jonathan Meese’s adaption of Parsifal) under Simone Young at the Wiener Festwochen and the Berliner Festspiele, Mrs. Sedley in Peter Grimes and Mercédès in Carmen, both at the Theater Bremen (Germany) as well as Maddalena in Rigoletto at the State Opera Budapest.

Melody Wilson is a five-time recipient of the Jessye Norman Fellowship and a winner of the “Gabriela Benacková Competition” in Prague and the “International Czech and Slovak Competition”.