RECENT NEWS
Returning to her recital roots
Quagliata will perform Bizet, Poulenc, DeFalla, and American standards with pianist Jenny Snyder at the Coconut Grove Music Series on Friday, March 3rd. Reserve your tickets here: https://tinyurl.com/mracx5c9
She will also be featured in the IlluminArts/Hued Songs concert series, Through the Storm: Women Walking in Greatness along with sopranos Brittany Graham and The Jas Sound.
The reviews are in for A Thousand Acres! Read them all on the reviews page!
“Ginny is embodied by mezzo-soprano Elise Quagliata, and this luminous performer not only anchors the production, but she also lifts it to the starry heavens.”
“She commands phrases of full-bodied firepower, lighthearted banter, and introspective utterances with equal vocal expertise. Her warm, appealing instrument has never sounded to better advantage.”
“Mezzo Elise Quagliata, an extraordinary singing actor, enjoyed a tour-de-force as Larry’s eldest daughter, Ginny. Quagliata’s voice was in resplendent form, and her keenly nuanced dramatic portrayal would match that of any performer in the spoken theater.”
2021 Grammy nomination!
Luna Pearl Woolf’s album Fire and Flood, which was nominated for a 2021 Grammy for Best Classical Compendium, featured Elise alongside cellist Matt Haimowitz, Devon Guthrie and Nancy Anderson!
Get your copy at Amazon, and watch the teaser video on YouTube.
A new American opera world premiere in July 2022
Join Elise for her 9th production with Des Moines Metro Opera on July 9, 2022 as they celebrate their 50th Anniversary with a new American work: the world premiere of A Thousand Acres, featuring Elise Quagliata as Ginny, with music by Kristin Kuster and libretto by Mark Campbell.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear set on a farm in Iowa in the late 1970s told from the point of view of Ginny, the oldest of three daughters.
A Thousand Acres is family drama writ large. It is a story with great scope and broad appeal with distinctive female characters that explores ideas of family conflict, patriarchy, legacy and the strength and fragility of the ties that bind us together, all told through the eyes of its central female protagonist.
Becoming Sister Helen for a 6th production
Elise is excited to make her debut with Opera Idaho this April Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking co-starring with Tim Mix as Joseph De Rocher and Sara Jobin on the podium.
Check out Elise’s interview with fellow mezzo, Katharine Goeldner, in AGMA’s magazine:
Here’s an excerpt:
Let’s start with the basics: We are almost one year into the pandemic, which shuttered your industry overnight. How are you doing with all of this? Well, after almost a year, I think we’ve settled into a bit of a new normal. It was extremely hard and jarring at first, losing our jobs, locking down, not traveling, not making art, not seeing family. We’re in a groove now that is somewhat tolerable, certainly not where we want to be much longer, but we’re making it work.
Take us back to March. What were you doing before the pandemic took hold? Where were you when you heard the news of the closures? I was in the middle of rehearsals with Minnesota Opera. We were rehearsing Paola Prestini and Mark Campbell’s beautiful new work, Edward Tulane, set to premiere mid-March. By March 1st, we knew Covid was coming closer to Minnesota, but we were still full steam ahead, just with more hand sanitizer and being more mindful of our generous hugs. Sadly, on Friday, March 13th, the administration called us in for a meeting and told us we would be going home. It was devastating and scary. We were sad to abandon this beautiful work, but knew getting back home safely to our families was the priority. Minnesota Opera handled the entire thing with goodwill and aplomb. They got us all back home the following day and paid us our fees. Because as this all started to sink in, I began to panic about losing this money. Future contracts were being canceled one after the next, theaters closing; losing an entire fee was unfathomable. But Minnesota Opera came through and took care of their artists, and that was no small feat.
UPCOMING
