Grammy-nominated mezzo-soprano Elise Quagliata has forged a dynamic career over twenty-five years, sought after for the beauty of her voice, her dramatic range, and the charismatic hold she has on audiences everywhere. Known for shaping roles in new and contemporary opera, she is equally acclaimed in the traditional repertoire, with programs that range from early music to jazz and cabaret. 

Quagliata has recently been seen as Lotte Lenya in Orchestra Miami's Berlin to Broadway, La Marquise in La Fille du Régiment with Utah Opera, Carmen with Union Avenue Opera, Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls with Charlottesville Opera, and Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking with Opera Idaho. On the concert stage, she made her Alaska debut singing the Verdi Requiem with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra and returned to the Reno Philharmonic as mezzo soloist in Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass. 

Quagliata has originated many roles in world premieres across the country. They include Joan Clarke in Simpatico and Chen's The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing with American Lyric Theater and Chicago Opera Theater, and Pellegrina/Older Doll in Campbell and Prestini's Edward Tulane with Minnesota Opera. Most notably, she created Ginny in Campbell and Kuster's A Thousand Acres for Des Moines Metro Opera's 50th anniversary. 

She has performed Hannah After in Laura Kaminsky's As One with Orlando Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Pensacola Opera, and Bar Harbor Music Festival. In 2018 she sang the Minskwoman in Jonathan Dove's Flight with John Holiday and an all-star cast at Des Moines Metro Opera, and she later reprised the role with Utah Opera. A favorite with Des Moines audiences for over fifteen years, she was featured there in the Cocteau-Poulenc solo opera La Voix Humaine (2020) and as the title role in Piazzolla's tango tour-de-force Maria de Buenos Aires (2017). Opera Today wrote that she "showed off her poised tone to perfection in a wide range of demanding emotional states. Dramatically and musically, she does not so much perform the part as inhabit it. A remarkable star turn." 

Quagliata also opened New York City Opera's 2016 season as Hedda Hopper in Stewart Wallace's Hopper's Wife, where The New York Times said she "rightly stole the show, her vocally and physically nuanced portrayal vividly conveying the evolution of the character." Other contemporary roles include Sister James in Douglas Cuomo's Doubt and Jo in Mark Adamo's Little Women, a "vocal tour de force of amazing power, beauty, and dexterity" (Pensacola Journal). She has also sung Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and Countess Charlotte Malcolm in A Little Night Music, in which Opera News found her "deliciously caustic." 

Her ensemble recording of Luna Pearl Woolf's Fire and Flood produced by Pentatone earned a 2021 Grammy nomination for Best Classical Compendium. 

A proponent of Jake Heggie's work, Quagliata sang Zosia in his 2018 chamber opera Out of Darkness: Two Remain with Atlanta Opera. She has embraced the demanding role of Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking in six productions. Opera News found her interpretation "passionate" and sung with "exceptional technical finesse," and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch praised her "dark, expressive voice" and "throat-grabbing intensity." 

Her interpretation of Heggie's songs has also drawn attention. The New York Times noted her "rich, expressive voice and passionate delivery" in The Deepest Desire, a song cycle on Sister Helen's prayers, which she performed in New York and Los Angeles with flutist Carol Wincenc and the composer at the piano. She later worked with Heggie on his cycle The Breaking Waves for an Opera America concert of his works. 

Quagliata's Carmen has been widely praised, with Opera News noting her "dusky mezzo, dramatic acumen and pulchritude." She sang over seventy performances of the role with New York City Opera on tour in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East, and later returned to sing it for audiences in New York's Bryant Park. She has also performed Carmen with New York City Opera, Utah Opera, Kentucky Opera, Union Avenue Opera, Opera on the James, and Chattanooga Opera. Her 2021 Pensacola Opera Carmen was one of the first operas staged in the country as pandemic lockdowns began to lift. 

In other traditional roles, Quagliata has sung Fricka in Jonathan Dove's reworking of Wagner's Das Rheingold and Die Walküre for Union Avenue Opera; Emilia in Verdi's Otello with Austin Opera and the Jacksonville Symphony; Cornelia in Handel's Giulio Cesare with Florida Grand Opera; and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and Rosina in The Barber of Seville with the National Philharmonc. With Des Moines Metro Opera, she has sung Olga in Eugene Onegin and Nicklausse in Les contes d'Hoffmann. 

As a soloist, Quagliata has appeared with an impressive roster of orchestras in much of the standard repertoire. Her credits include Mahler's Symphony No. 3, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Handel's Messiah, and Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky with the Jacksonville Symphony, and Duruflé's Requiem with the Pacific Symphony. She has also sung the Verdi Requiem with Brazil's Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with the Savannah Philharmonic, and Beethoven's Ninth with the Santa Barbara Symphony and Reno Philharmonic. She recorded Cowell's Atlantis with the American Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall and Brahms's Alto Rhapsody with the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Idaho Symphony. 

Her recitals in American and European venues often feature the new, unique, or unknown. She has specialized in American, French, Czech, and Spanish repertoire and was chosen to sing de Falla and Obradors for the King and Queen of Spain on their visit to Florida. Her versatility has been noted in the "glorious grace" of her interpretations of standards from Cole Porter to Kurt Weill. Recent engagements include recitals and masterclasses at Florida State University, as well as galas for Pensacola Opera, Gulfshore Opera, Florentine Opera, and Union Avenue Opera. 

A dedicated teacher, Quagliata is a professor of voice at Miami Dade College. She previously taught at Hunter College, and she maintains a private studio for teaching, coaching, and mentorship. She has given masterclasses at the University of Miami, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Florida State University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, the University of Idaho, Southern Illinois University, Virginia Tech, and the University of West Florida.  As a voiceover artist, she has been featured in national brand campaigns for E-Trade and US Bank, as well as PBS's Great Performances. 

Quagliata holds a Master of Music from the University of Michigan (summa cum laude) and a Bachelor of Music (magna cum laude) from the University of Connecticut.