Angela Meade to make sold-out Kennedy Center recital debut
Soprano Angela Meade – winner of the 2011 Richard Tucker Award and the 2012 Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera – has a number of notable “firsts” during her 2012-13 season, including her recital debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. on November 10. The recital, already sold out, will be at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, with pianist Bradley Moore accompanying Meade in a program of famous arias and art songs. Prime among them is “Casta Diva” from Bellini’s Norma, the role that launched her to prominence at the 2010 Caramoor Festival. In March, she returns to the Kennedy Center to sing Norma in a new production of the opera staged by Anne Bogart at the Washington National Opera. The New York Post hailed the young soprano as “a brilliant new interpreter of Norma,” while the New York Times said of her Caramoor performance, “Ms. Meade’s stunning Norma was the big news.”
Already this season, in September, Meade made her house debut at the Vienna Staatsoper as Elena in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani. Reviewing the production, Die Presse said that “she encompassed with astonishing mastery the extreme vocal range of the role, with the required breadth of both lyrical and dramatic coloratura.” The Kurier added, “Angela Meade portrays the Duchess Elena with her generously endowed soprano, including elegant coloratura and a remarkable range in a memorable house debut.” In October, the singer made her debut at the Los Angeles Opera, as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The Los Angeles culture blog All Is Yar was full of praise for Meade’s performance, saying, “She has a radiant tone to her voice that she deftly controls to maximum dramatic effect, expressing vulnerability and sweetness with a beautifully light touch one moment and intensity in rage and anguish the next, punctuating moments with some serious vocal power. … Her rendition of Donna Anna’s second act ‘Crudele! Non mi dir’ was an absolute show stopper, easily getting the largest ovation of the night.”
Meade returns to New York for a Carnegie Hall concert performance of Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda with the Collegiate Chorale on December 5. And on January 16, the soprano will portray Leonora in her first staged Il trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera.
Critics have been showering praise on Meade, speculating that she may just be “the next great Verdian soprano” (Baltimore Sun). She is developing a passionate following among lovers of bel canto repertoire, with The New Yorker’s Alex Ross calling her 2011 Anna Bolena at the Metropolitan Opera “electrifying, [and] as pure a display of vocal power as I’ve heard at the Met in the past few years. In her final moments, issuing a tractor beam of Wagnerian tone with her arms flung out, she was no longer an impeccable bel canto student but a full-on diva.” In the August issue of Opera News, Meade was profiled as part of “Opera’s Next Wave,” with the magazine declaring: “Audiences have hungered for a singer like Angela Meade for a long time. She’s a genuine soprano drammatico d’agilità. … There’s no question that she has a voice to be reckoned with: It’s beautiful, it’s sizable, and it moves.”
In addition to the prestigious Tucker and Sills awards, Meade has won 55 vocal competitions, including the International Press Prize; the La Scala Prize at Vienna’s Belvedere Competition; and the José Iturbi International Music Competition. Meade was one of the singers whose experiences as contestants in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions – of which she was a winner – were chronicled in the film The Audition, broadcast on PBS-TV and available on DVD (Decca).
Additional information about Angela Meade is available at www.angelameade.com.
Angela Meade: upcoming engagements, 2012-13 Season
Nov 10
Washington D.C.
Terrace Theater recital
Kennedy Center
Bradley Moore, piano
Dec 4
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera Guild’s 78th Annual Luncheon: “Star Power!” A Celebration of Met Artists Discovered Through the National Council Auditions Program
Waldorf-Astoria
Musical tributes by Lawrence Brownlee, Angela Meade, and Latonia Moore
Dec 5
New York, NY
Bellini: Beatrice di Tenda
Carnegie Hall
The Collegiate Chorale / James Bagwell
Dec 22
Centralia, Washington
Benefit concert for music scholarships, in honor of Meade’s late mother, Deborah
Corbet Theatre stage, Washington Hall, Centralia College
Jan 16
New York, NY
Verdi: Il trovatore (Leonora)
Metropolitan Opera / Daniele Callegari
Jan 26
Oshawa, Canada
R. Strauss: Four Last Songs
Regent Theatre, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Ontario Philharmonic / Marco Parisotto
Jan 29
Toronto, Canada
R. Strauss: Four Last Songs
Koerner Hall, Telus Centre for Performance
Ontario Philharmonic / Marco Parisotto
March 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 & 24
Washington, D.C.
Bellini: Norma (title role; new production)
Washington National Opera / Daniele Rustioni
April 8
New York, New York
Verdi: I Lombardi (Giselda)
Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center
Opera Orchestra of New York / Eve Queler
April 26, 27 & 28
Pittsburgh, PA
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Pittsburgh Symphony, Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh / Manfred Honeck
June 13 & 15
Cincinnati, OH
Mozart: Don Giovanni (Donna Anna)
Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati Music Hall
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