This season Jessie Raven made her Italian début with the Fondazione Petruzzelli di Bari, as Fricka in Die Walküre. Also this season, Ms. Raven made her Norwegian début with the Grieg International Choir Festival in Bergen, as the Mezzo-Soprano soloist in Verdi’s Requiem.
In recent seasons, Ms. Raven sang Eboli in Don Carlo with Hawaii Opera Theater, Presiozilla in La Forza del Destino in her Baltimore Opera début, and The Witch in Hansel and Gretel in her Atlanta Opera début.
Past highlights include the title role in eleven productions of Carmen worldwide (New York City Opera, New Zealand Opera, Opera Ontario, Opera Columbus, Princeton Festival Opera, El Paso Opera, Singapore Lyric Opera, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Opera North, Chicago’s Lyric Opera for American Artists), Amneris in Aida (The Florentine Opera), Azucena in Il Trovatore (Nashville Opera, El Paso Opera, Mobile Opera, Opera North), Dalila in Samson and Dalila (Opera Carolina), Fricka and Waltraute in Wagner’s Ring Cycle (Long Beach Opera and Pittsburgh Opera Theatre), The Witch in Hansel and Gretel (New York City Opera), Maddalena in Rigoletto (Hawaii Opera Theater, Augusta Opera, Connecticut Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Central City), Octavian in Der Rosencavalier (Opera Carolina), Rosalind in The Mines of Sulphur (New York City Opera), the title role in Tobias Picker's Thérèse Raquin (L'Opéra de Montréal), Siegrune in Die Walküre (Dallas Opera), the title role in The Medium (Opera North), Prince Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus (Augusta Opera), and Vivian in Krenek’s What Prince Confidence (Teatro Nationale di Roma).
Ms. Raven’s concert repertoire includes the Verdi Requiem and Beethoven’s Mass in C, (both in Carnegie Hall), Rossini’s Stabat Mater (Macau Festival, China), the Mezzo Solo Voice in Moses and Aron (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Kalamazoo and Elgin Symphony Orchestras), and gala concert performances with Toledo Opera, Connecticut Grand Opera, Sarasota Opera, and The Long Island Philharmonic.
Ms. Raven is a proud winner of the George London Foundation Award (including the Vienna Prize), as well as a Sullivan Award and Wagner Society of New York Grant. Ms. Raven completed a two-year apprenticeship with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and participated in the apprentice programs of Pittsburgh Opera, Central City Opera, Opera North, and the Aspen Music Festival.
