Opera in a Nutshell! or Opera 101

CONCERT PROGRAM - click to view

Roaring onto the operatic stage in recent seasons, Melanie made her Straussian and Wagnerian debuts as Solome and Brunnhilde, followed closely by a harrowing portrayal of Magda Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, “The Consul”.

Singing a vast repertoire of music spanning the opera, concert and folk worlds, her “33 Divas” recording project combining classic Wagner, Verdi and Puccini roles with modern American opera heroines remains the “#1 Most Funded Kickstarter for a Solo Classical Artist”.

A career-long focus on orchestral lieder has led to performances of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Ruckert-Lieder, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Gurre-Lieder, Messiaen’s Poems pour Mi and Harawi, Berg’s 7 Fruhe Lieder and, most recently, Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder.

Her Vienna to Hollywood recital program featuring composers who fled Vienna for Los Angeles on the eve of World War II has been heard in libraries, synagogues, and on college campuses in the United States and Europe.

Born and raised in the Delaware River Valley, Melanie got her start at the DVO. After early training in New York at the Manhattan School of Music, she graduated from the University of Southern California and went on to study triple Master’s Degrees at the Konservatorium in Vienna, Austria. She can be heard on the soundtrack of the cult television series Battlestar Galactica.