A longtime friend of Evans Mirageas, mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor brings life and energy to this episode of “Inside Opera”. Evans and Kelley discuss her unlikely path to becoming an opera singer beginning at the age of five. Kelley discusses her changing voice and how it has influenced the roles she receives. Learn why and how she challenges herself by “stepping out of the box” and her advice for young singers.
Show Notes:
Kelley sang the role of Federico Lorca in the original version of Osvaldo Golijov’s opera Ainadamar.
Kelley earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California and her master's degree in Music from the University of California, Los Angeles.
John Adams is an American composer, clarinetist, and conductor of classical music and opera, with strong roots in minimalism.
Suzuki is a character in the opera Madame Butterfly, an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini.
Roberto De Candia is an Italian operatic baritone.
Maria Luigia Borsi is an Italian opera singer.
Hadleigh Adams is an operatic baritone from Palmerston North, New Zealand. Hadleigh recently played Mercutio in Cincinnati Opera’s performance of Charles Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet.
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II.
A breeches role (also pants role or trouser role) is a role in which an actress appears in male clothing.
Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts.
The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five".
Requiem Canticles is a 15-minute composition by Igor Stravinsky, for contralto and bass soli, chorus, and orchestra.
Cherubino is a character in The Marriage of Figaro, an opera buffa (comic opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
"The Composer" is a character in Richard Strauss's opera Ariadne auf Naxos.
Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth") is a composition for two voices and orchestra written by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler.
Cecilia Bartoli is an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist.
“Voi Che Sapete” is an aria from The Marriage of Figaro.
Renée Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions.
Leontyne Price is an American soprano. She rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was the first African American to become a leading performer, or prima donna, at the Metropolitan Opera, and one of the most popular American classical singers of her generation.
Robert Spano is an American conductor and pianist.
The Gospel According to the Other Mary is an opera/oratorio by John Adams.
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary staging of classical and contemporary operas and plays.
El Niño is an opera-oratorio by John Adams.
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music.
El Salón México is a symphonic composition in one movement by Aaron Copland, which uses Mexican folk music extensively.
Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner.
Kelley grew up in Clovis, California.
Audra McDonald is an American actress and singer. Primarily known for her work on the Broadway stage, she has won six Tony Awards, more performance wins than any other actor, and is the only person to win all four acting categories. McDonald was raised in Fresno, California.
La Cenerentola is an operatic dramma giocoso by Gioachino Rossini.
The Turn of the Screw is a 20th-century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten.
Claude Debussy was a French composer.
Phyllis Curtin was an American classical soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s.
Donald Runnicles is a Scottish conductor.
Louis Langrée is the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Evans mentions the following Mahler works: Symphony No. 2 (known as the Resurrection Symphony), Symphony No. 3, Symphony No.8, Rückert-Lieder, and Kindertotenlieder.
The songs of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn) by Gustav Mahler are voice-and-piano and orchestral settings of German folk poems chosen from a collection of the same name.
The Rape of Lucretia is an opera by Benjamin Britten.
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City.
The Neruda Songs are a cycle of five songs composed for mezzo-soprano soloist and orchestra by the American composer Peter Lieberson for his wife, singer Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Lieberson chose O'Connor as the first mezzo-soprano to sing his composition Neruda Songs live in concert after the death of his wife.
Bernard Haitink is a Dutch conductor.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is an American orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia. Robert Spano has been its music director since 2001.
Agustín Barrios was a Paraguayan virtuoso classical guitarist and composer, largely regarded as one of the greatest performers and most prolific composers for the guitar.
Carmen is an opera by French composer Georges Bizet.
The Dream of Gerontius is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman.
Wesendonck Lieder is the common name of a set of five songs for female voice and piano Wagner, Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme (Five Poems for a Female Voice).
Hans Werner Henze was a German composer.
Sea Pictures is a song cycle by Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets.
Jascha Heifetz was a Russian-American violinist.
Kelley cites Dawn Upshaw, an American soprano, as her most important mentor.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog and their lives in the 1968 Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history.
Tidying Up with Marie Kondo is a reality television series developed for Netflix and released on January 1, 2019.
Kelley mentions Here’s the Thing and Fresh Air as some of her favorite podcasts.
Zero, aptly named for the amount of food you eat during a fast, is a simple tracker that helps users sync a fast with their biological clock.
Spotify Technology S.A. is a Swedish media-services provider founded in 2006 with an app of the same name.
Pandora is a music application.
Jessica Rivera is an American soprano of Peruvian-American ancestry.
Kelley cites Nina Simone as one of her favorite musicians outside of classical music.