- Cecilia Bartoli
The Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli is an opera singer and recitalist. She is best-known for her Mozart and Rossini roles as well as for her performances of lesser-known Baroque music. Bartoli is considered a coloratura mezzo-soprano (Koloratur-Mezzosopran), with perhaps less of a "large voice" than some other mezzos, but with a highly individual timbre which she uses to great vocal and dramatic effect.
- Anne Sofie von Otter
The Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter is a well-known opera singer and concert recitalist. She is particularly famous for her trouser roles. Von Otter was born in Stockholm. Her father was the diplomat Göran von Otter and she grew up in Bonn, London and Stockholm. After studying in Stockholm and Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, she was engaged by the Basel Opera, …
- Marilyn Horne
The American opera singer Marilyn Horne (b. January 16 1934, Bradford, Pennsylvania) is a mezzo-soprano who is particularly associated with the music of Rossini and Handel. Horne was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, but moved with her parents to Long Beach, California when she was 11. She studied voice at the University of Southern California and participated in Lotte Lehmann's vocal classes. Horne's first major professional engagement was in 1954, …
- Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Janette Te Kanawa, ONZ, AC, DBE, (born March 6, 1944) is an internationally famous New Zealand opera singer. In 1981, she was seen and heard around the world by an estimated 600 million people when she sang Handel's "Let the Bright Seraphim" at the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer. Te Kanawa was born in Gisborne, on New Zealand's North Island.
- Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (March 1 1954 - July 3 2006) was a renowned American soprano then mezzo-soprano, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade (born June 1, 1945, Somerville, New Jersey) is an American mezzo-soprano. Miss von Stade attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1970 and in 1971 appeared as Cherubino in "The Marriage of Figaro" at the Santa Fe Opera. "It was two of the newcomers who left the audience dazzled: Frederica von Stade as Cherubino and Kiri te Kanawa as the Countess.
- Susan Graham
Susan Graham (born 1960, Roswell, New Mexico) is an American mezzo-soprano. She was raised in Midland, Texas. She is a graduate of Texas Tech University and of the Manhattan School of Music. She studied the piano for 13 years. She was a winner in the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions, and also a recipient of the Schwabacher Award from the Merola Program of San Francisco Opera. Graham made her international début at Covent Garden in 1994, …
- Denyce Graves
Denyce Graves (born March 7, 1964 in Washington, D.C.) is an American opera singer. She is a mezzo soprano and began vocal training at the Duke Ellington School of Arts in Washington in the late 1980s. She also studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and New England Conservatory. She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1995 and has appeared at many opera houses.
- Christa Ludwig
Christa Ludwig (born March 16, 1928) is a retired German mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera and Lieder. Her career spanned from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. Ludwig was born in Berlin to a musical family; her father, Anton Ludwig, was a tenor and an operatic administrator, her mother, the mezzo-soprano Eugenie Besalla-Ludwig who sang the Aachen Opera during Herbert von Karajan's period as conductor.
- Janet Baker
Dame Janet Abbott Baker CH DBE FRSA (born August 21, 1933) is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer. She was particularly closely associated with baroque and early Italian opera and the works of Benjamin Britten. During her career, which spanned the 1950s to the 1980s, she was considered an outstanding singing actress and widely admired for her dramatic intensity, perhaps best represented in her famous portrayal as Dido, …
- Jean-Yves Thibaudet
Jean-Yves Thibaudet (b. 7 September 1961) is a French pianist born in Lyon, France to non-professional musical parents. His father played the violin and his mother, a somewhat accomplished pianist herself, introduced the instrument to Jean-Yves in 1966. Thibaudet thus began seriously studying the piano with several prominent teachers and made his first public appearance at the age of seven.
- Alice Tully
Alice Tully (September 14 1902 - December 10 1993) was a singer, music promoter and philanthropist. Tully began her career as a mezzo-soprano, then became a soprano. She studied in Paris, France and made her debut in 1927 with the Pasdeloup Orchestra. In 1933, she appeared in "Cavalleria Rusticana" in New York City. In 1958, Tully inherited the estate of her grandfather, William Houghton, founder of the Corning Glass Works.
- Teresa Berganza
The Spanish opera singer Teresa Berganza (born 16 March 1935) is the foremost soprano/mezzo-soprano of the third quarter of the 20th century. She is most closely associated with the roles of Rossini, Mozart, and Bizet. She is admired for her technical virtuosity, musical intelligence and beguiling stage presence.
- Katherine Jenkins
Katherine Jenkins (born 29 June 1980 in Neath, Wales) is an award-winning Welsh mezzo-soprano. Her first album "Premiere" made her the fastest selling soprano of all time and she later became the first British classical artist to have two number one albums in the same year. Jenkins has recorded several number one albums which feature arias, popular songs, …
- Angelika Kirchschlager
Angelika Kirchschlager (*1966 in Salzburg) is an Austrian mezzo-soprano opera and lieder singer. In a relatively short time, Angelika Kirchschlager has become one of the most sought after mezzo-sopranos in the opera, recognized for her dramatic skills as well as for her singing. She has been heard on all of the major opera stages of the world and has performed interpretations of Lieder and Oratorios.
- Olga Borodina
Olga Borodina is a leading mezzo-soprano, known for her roles in Russian operas at her home company, the Mariinsky Theatre, and for her international performing and recording career in a varied repertoire. Borodina made her debut in Samson and Delilah at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Placido Domingo. She performs frequently at the Metropolitan Opera and the San Francisco Opera and many other opera houses in roles including La Cenerentola, …
- Ann Murray
Ann Murray, DBE is an Irish mezzo-soprano. She was born on August 27, 1949 in Dublin. She studied with Frederick Cox at the Royal Manchester College of Music and made her stage debut as Alcestis in Christoph Willibald Gluck's Alceste in 1974. She has since sung at all major opera houses and is highly acclaimed in works by George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Richard Strauss. Ms.
- Shirley Verrett
The American opera singer Shirley Verrett (born May 31 1931) is a mezzo-soprano and a soprano who has enjoyed great fame since the late 1960s, much admired for her radiant voice, beauty, and great versatility. Born into an African-American family of devout Seventh-day Adventists in New Orleans, Louisiana, Verrett showed early musical abilities, but initially a singing career was frowned upon by her family. Later Verrett went on to study in Los Angeles, …
- Stephanie Blythe
Stephanie Blythe is a Mezzo-Soprano opera singer. She graduated from Monticello High School in 1987 and the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York at Potsdam in 1992. She was the recipient of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award in 1999. SUNY Potsdam awarded her the degree of Doctor of Music "honoris causa" in 2006.
- Brigitte Fassbaender
Brigitte Fassbaender (born 3 July, 1939 in Berlin), is a mezzo-soprano opera singer.
- Maria Malibran
The mezzo-soprano (although she commonly sang soprano parts) Maria Malibran, was one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28. Contemporary accounts of her voice describe its range, power and flexibility as extraordinary.
- Vivica Genaux
Vivica Genaux is an American mezzo-soprano. Her father, an American of Belgian-Welsh descent, was a biochemistry professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and her mother, of Swiss-German extraction, was a language teacher. She has sung in major operas such as The Barber of Seville at the Metropolitan Opera, L'italiana in Algeri at Opéra National de Paris, and La Cenerentola with Dallas Opera and the Bayerische Staatsoper. Ms.
- Sarah Walker
Sarah Walker CBE (born 11 March 1943 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire) is a British mezzo-soprano. Walker's grandparents were members of the Hallé Choir, and her aunt (Madame Annie Walker) was a notable soprano in the early 20th Century. She began her musical studies as a violinist at the Royal College of Music, from there she went to study singing with Vera Rozsa.
- Agnes Baltsa
Agnes Baltsa (born 19th November 1944 in Lefkada) is a leading Greek mezzo-soprano. She began playing piano at the age of six, before moving to Athens in 1958 to concentrate on singing. She graduated from the Greek National Conservatoire in 1965 and then travelled to Munich to continue studying under a Maria Callas scholarship. Baltsa made her first appearance in an opera in 1968 as Cherubino in "The Marriage of Figaro" at Frankfurt Opera, …
- Grace Bumbry
Grace Bumbry (born 4 January 1937), an American opera singer, was considered one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of her generation. She was also a member of an extraordinary and pioneering generation of singers who followed Marian Anderson (including Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Shirley Verrett, Reri Grist) and paved the way for future African-American opera and classical singers. Initially, Bumbry began her career as a mezzo, …
- Violeta Urmana
Violeta Urmana-Urmanavičiūtė is an opera singer who began her career as a mezzo-soprano but has transitioned successfully into soprano roles. Born in Lithuania, she enjoys an international career singing in opera houses around the world. Her roles and performances include: Sieglinde in Die Walküre at the Bayreuth Festival, Iphigénie en Aulide at La Scala, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier at the Vienna State Opera, Lady in Macbeth, Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, …
- Vesselina Kasarova
Vesselina Kasarova is a Bulgarian-Swiss mezzo-soprano
- Waltraud Meier
Waltraud Meier is a Grammy-award winning German mezzo-soprano. She is particularly known for her Wagnerian roles as Kundry, Isolde, Ortrud, Venus and Sieglinde, but has also had success in the French and Italian repertoire appearing as Eboli, Amneris, Carmen and Santuzza. She resides in Munich. Meier has performed in the world’s famed opera houses (including La Scala, Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, …
- Peter Lieberson
Peter Lieberson came to prominence in the mid-1980s with the Piano Concerto and Drala, two major commissions from the Boston Symphony, with whom he still enjoys a fruitful collaboration. Of profound influence on his music has been his practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Since 1980 many of his works have been inspired by Buddhist themes such as King Gesar (1991) and the opera Ashoka's Dream (1997), both from a series of works based on the lives of enlightened rulers.
- Monica Groop
Monica Groop is a Finnish operatic mezzo-soprano. She is well known for her operatic, recital, symphonic, and chamber music performances. Since her professional debut with the Finnish National Opera in 1987, she has performed with many of the world’s finest opera companies, orchestras and conductors. Her repertory includes a rich and varied mixture of baroque, classical and modern masters.
- Giulietta Simionato
The Italian mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato (born May 12 1910) was one of the great singers of the post-war operatic stage. Her career spanned from the 1930s until her retirement in 1966. Simionato was much admired for vibrant singing in a remarkably wide repertoire, excelling in both dramatic and comic roles and in lyric and heavier repertoire. She was in demand at every major opera house and worked with the greatest conductors of the time.
- Felicity Palmer
Felicity Joan Palmer (born April 6, 1944) is an English mezzo-soprano (soprano until 1983). She was born in Cheltenham and studied at the Guildhall School of Music in London and under Marianne Schech at the Munich College for Music and Theatre. In April 1970, she won first prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship. She made her operatic debut in 1971 as Dido in Dido and Aeneas with Kent Opera. In 1973, she made her US debut with the Houston Grand Opera, …
- Dolora Zajick
Dolora Zajick has been acclaimed on the international scene as that rare voice type, a true dramatic Verdi mezzo-soprano typified by the composer''s most famous and difficult mezzo-soprano roles, Azucena, Amneris and Eboli (in "Travatore", "Aida", and "Don Carlo" respectively).
- Sarah Connolly
Sarah Connolly is a British mezzo-soprano.
- Cathy Berberian
Catherine Anahid Berberian (Attleboro, Massachusetts, July 4 1925 - Rome, Italy, March 6 1983) was a composer, mezzo-soprano singer, and vocalist. From 1950 to 1966 she was married to composer Luciano Berio, who deconstructed her voice in "Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)" (1958) and wrote his "Circles" (1960) and "Recital I (for Cathy)" (1972) for her. In addition Sylvano Bussotti, John Cage, Hans Werner Henze and Igor Stravinsky wrote works for her voice.
- Della Jones
Della Jones, was born on the 13th April 1946 in Tonna, near Neath. She is a Welsh opera and concert mezzo-soprano singer. She is particularly well-known for her fine interpretations of works by Händel, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, and Britten. Her recordings cover all facets of her work. In 1977, when Don White and Patric Schmid created the record label Opera Rara, she was one of its first performers, and sang for the label for many years.
- Guillemette Laurens
Guillemette Laurens is a French operatic mezzo-soprano. Guillemette trained at the Academy of Toulouse and debuted as Baba in "The Rake's Progress" at Salle Favart. She took part in the premiere recording of Lully's "Atys" conducted by William Christie. She is a highly-respected singer of Baroque music, both as a soprano and a mezzo-soprano. She has made notable recordings of Monteverdi operas.
- Regina Resnik
Regina Resnik (born 30 August 1922 in New York City) is an opera singer and actress, first as a soprano, then a mezzo-soprano. After graduating from Hunter College in 1942, Regina Resnik made her concert debut in Brooklyn. She followed that up by making her operatic debut in Manhattan during the same year. She made her first Metropolitan Opera appearance in 1944 and began performing internationally. In 1971, she began to direct opera productions, and in 1983, …
- Magdalena Kožená
Magdalena Kožená is a Czech mezzo-soprano. She appears regularly at the Prague Spring and at the Concentus Moraviae Festivals. Kožená was born in Brno in 1973. After having studied at the Brno Conservatoire and at the College of Performing Arts in Bratislava, she graduated in 1995. In 1996-97 she was a member of the Vienna Volksoper.
- Régine Crespin
Régine Crespin was a French operatic soprano, later a mezzo-soprano, who excelled in both the French and German repertoire.