American Soprano Angela Meade, 2011 Richard Tucker Award Winner, Is Now Represented by 21C Media Group
November 28th, 201121C Media Group is proud to announce that it now represents American soprano Angela Meade, winner of the 2011 Richard Tucker Award. Less than four years after her professional debut on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, Meade has become recognized as one of the outstanding vocalists of her generation. “Angela Meade made a triumphant appearance in the Met’s Anna Bolena last night, largely fulfilling the high expectations that have surrounded her,” wrote critic Alex Ross last month. He noted that her singing was “electrifying, as pure a display of vocal power as I’ve heard at the Met in the past few years.”
Meade excels in the most demanding 19th-century bel canto repertoire, as well as in the operas of Verdi and Mozart. Among her high-profile engagements this season, she returns to the Met as Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani, February 2-25, culminating in the Live in HD cinema broadcast worldwide on February 25. In March she collaborates with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin for her Canadian debut, singing Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony with Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain; in May she appears for the first time with Deutsche Oper Berlin for a concert performance of Verdi’s I due Foscari.
Earlier this month, when Meade was honored at the Richard Tucker Gala concert at Lincoln Center, the foundation’s president, Barry Tucker, had this to say:
“I first heard Angela when she gave a concert in Stamford, Connecticut: she sang ‘Pace, pace’ and my jaw dropped. I hadn’t heard it sung like that in more than 30 years – incredible! Since then, I’ve heard her singNorma. I am really impressed with this terrific young singer – both the amazing quality of her voice and how she uses it in these difficult pieces. At last year’s Tucker Gala concert, she wowed the audience with the end of Lucrezia Borgia. Barely anyone knew her but I can’t tell you how many people asked me about her afterwards, even with all the big-name stars on that gala. Over the last 37 years, the Tucker Foundation has given the Tucker Award to singers from Zajick and Fleming to DiDonato and Brownlee, just as their careers took off and before they became international stars. I feel that Angela follows in that great tradition and I have really high hopes for her.”
Of the soprano’s performance at the November Tucker Gala, the New York Times wrote, “Her sound was enormous, rich and unforced. Her coloratura runs and passagework were dispatched with aplomb and precision.” The Associated Press praised her “resplendent high notes and technical agility,” and noted, “the 2011 honoree (and $30,000 prize winner), soprano Angela Meade, is already an accomplished artist who can hold her own in such high-powered company” as guest artists tenor Jonas Kaufmann, bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, and mezzo-sopranos Stephanie Blythe and Dolora Zajick.
Born in Centralia, Washington, and currently a resident of New York City, Angela Meade joined an elite group of history’s singers when she made her professional debut at the Metropolitan Opera in March 2008 as Elvira in Ernani, substituting for an ill colleague. The Associated Press wrote that the soprano “showed a vibrant voice with nice color and an assured technique and sang like an old pro from start to finish.” Winner of an astounding number of competition prizes (53), she had previously sung on the Met stage as one of the winners of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a process documented in the film The Audition (now on a Decca DVD). Meade has since appeared at the Met as the Countess in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (under Fabio Luisi), and this fall in the title role of David McVicar’s new production of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena.
Along with reprising her Elvira at the Met, Meade’s 2011-12 season highlights include appearing as Sinaide in Rossini’s Moïse et Pharaon on November 30 at Carnegie Hall, with the Collegiate Chorale and the American Symphony Orchestra under James Bagwell. The soprano makes her Canadian debut on March 18, singing in Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony with the Orchestre Métropolitain led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She portrays Lucrezia Contarini in Verdi’s I due Foscari at the Deutsche Opera-Berlin, May 9-11. Looking ahead to next season, Meade makes her Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, and Vienna State Opera debuts, along with further appearances at what has become her home stage – the Metropolitan Opera.
Bellini’s Norma will figure in Meade’s future, too. Her performance with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and conductor Will Crutchfield riveted audiences and critics at the Caramoor International Music Festival in 2010. The New Yorker enthused over the soprano’s art and encapsulated her allure as a performer: “In technical terms, Meade is astounding. She is almost scarily secure at the top of the range – at the end of Act I she let out a blazing high D – and she makes a rich, rounded sound at the lower end. She has exceptional dynamic control, able to move from floating pianissimos to sudden dramatic swells. The coloratura effects – rapid runs, trills, delicate turns, and so on – are handled with uncommon ease. She is a very musical singer, naturally and intelligently riding the phrase. Her tone has a distinct character, slightly darker than the coloratura norm yet warmly glowing. She doesn’t seem to make her voice do things; it is doing what it was born to do.”
Angela Meade: highlights of upcoming engagements
Nov 30
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall
Rossini: Moïse et Pharaon (Sinaide)
Feb 2-25*
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera
Verdi: Ernani (Elvira)
(*Feb 25: Met Live in HD broadcast)
March 10
Boca Raton, FL
Festival of the Arts
Opera at the Movies concert
March 18
Montreal, Canada
Zemlinsky: Lyric Symphony
Orchestre Métropolitain w/Yannick Nézet-Séguin
May 9, 11
Berlin, Germany
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Verdi: I due Foscari (Lucrezia Contarini)
June 6, 23
Kiel, Germany
Oper Kiel
Gala Concert