Soprano Angela Meade Sings Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani at the Met Feb 2-25, Returning to Role and Stage of Her 2008 Professional Debut; Appears in “Live in HD” Broadcast to Cinemas Worldwide Feb 25
January 6th, 2012Soprano Angela Meade, the 2011 Richard Tucker Award winner, returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani, February 2-25, singing the role with which she made an unscheduled “star is born” professional debut at the Met in 2008 substituting for an ill colleague. Opera lovers worldwide can hear the rising young soprano when Ernani is beamed to cinemas worldwide on February 25 as part of the ever-popular “Met – Live in HD” series. Meade’s co-stars include Marcello Giordani, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, with Marco Armiliato leading the Met Opera Orchestra. Armiliato first conducted Meade at the Grand Finals Concert of the 2007 Met Opera National Council Auditions, a process chronicled in the documentary film The Audition.
Since that time, and less than four years after her professional debut on the Met’s stage, Angela Meade has become recognized as one of the outstanding vocalists of her generation. Last fall Meade followed Anna Netrebko’s run in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, singing the title role to great acclaim. “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. 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. “Could Meade be the next great Verdian soprano?” queried critic Tim Smith, in his Baltimore Sunreview following her performance in Verdi’s Requiem with the Baltimore Symphony last June. “She has a tremendously powerful and flexible dramatic voice,” concurred The Washingtonian. “Even at the loudest parts of the score, with the entire BSO at full bore, Meade’s voice sailed clearly over the fray, while she also had suave control of her voice at soft dynamics, shimmering in the stratosphere.”
Following her Met run in Ernani, Meade collaborates with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin for her Canadian debut in March, 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.
© 21C Media Group, January 2012