Carol Wilson
Encyclopedia
Carol Wilson is an American opera
tic soprano
who is particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
, Richard Strauss
, and Richard Wagner
. She has also had a considerable amount of success in performing in baroque operas.
A graduate of Iowa State University
, Wilson has been a principal artist at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
since 1998 where she has portrayed such roles as Agathe in Der Freischütz
, Alice Ford in Falstaff
, the Countess in Capriccio
, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
, Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte
, Leonore in Fidelio
, Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, and the title heroines in Alcina
, Ariadne auf Naxos
, L'incoronazione di Poppea
, and Iphigénie en Tauride
. Her 2009 performances at the house include Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni
, the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten
, Freia in Das Rheingold
, Gutrune in Götterdämmerung
, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier
, Ortlinde in Die Walküre
, and La Speranza/La Musica in L'Orfeo.
As a guest artist, Wilson has performed at the Caramoor Festival, the Connecticut Early Music Festival (Elisa in Il re pastore
), Oper Frankfurt (Eva), the Royal Opera Stockholm (Marie/Marietta in Die tote Stadt
), the Savonlinna Opera Festival
(Eva), the Staatstheater Bonn (Ariadne and Leonore), the Staatstheater Nürnberg
(Alcina), the Staatsoper Stuttgart
(Alcina), Theater Lübeck
(Tatyana in Eugene Onegin
) and the Vancouver Opera
(the Marschallin and Agathe). She has also performed in concerts with the American Symphony Orchestra
, the Boston Masterworks Chorale, the Brooklyn Philharmonic
(concert performances of Violetta in La Traviata
and Micaela in Carmen
), the International Congress for Medieval Music, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival
, the Orchestra of St. Luke's
(as Maria in concert performances of West Side Story and in Handel and Haydn operas), the Topeka Symphony Orchestra, the University of Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players
, and the Rocky Mountain Festival for Contemporary Music.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
who is particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, and Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
. She has also had a considerable amount of success in performing in baroque operas.
A graduate of Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
, Wilson has been a principal artist at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
Deutsche Oper am Rhein
The Deutsche Oper am Rhein is an opera company based in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. The opera also has an associated classical ballet company....
since 1998 where she has portrayed such roles as Agathe in Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
, Alice Ford in Falstaff
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
, the Countess in Capriccio
Capriccio (opera)
Capriccio is the final opera by German composer Richard Strauss, subtitled "A Conversation Piece for Music". The opera received its premiere performance at the Nationaltheater München on October 28, 1942. Clemens Krauss and Strauss himself wrote the German libretto...
, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
, Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
, Leonore in Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
, Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, and the title heroines in Alcina
Alcina
Alcina is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after, during his travels in Italy...
, Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
, L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
, and Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. It was his fifth opera for the French stage. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard....
. Her 2009 performances at the house include Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
, Freia in Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
, Gutrune in Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
, Ortlinde in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
, and La Speranza/La Musica in L'Orfeo.
As a guest artist, Wilson has performed at the Caramoor Festival, the Connecticut Early Music Festival (Elisa in Il re pastore
Il re pastore
Il re pastore is an opera, K. 208, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Metastasio, edited by Gianbattista Varesco. It is an opera seria...
), Oper Frankfurt (Eva), the Royal Opera Stockholm (Marie/Marietta in Die tote Stadt
Die tote Stadt
Die tote Stadt is an opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto is by the composer and Paul Schott , and is based on Bruges-la-Morte, a short novel by Georges Rodenbach.-Performance history:When Die tote Stadt had its premiere on December 4, 1920, Korngold was just 23...
), the Savonlinna Opera Festival
Savonlinna Opera Festival
Savonlinna Opera Festival is held annually in the city of Savonlinna in Finland. The Festival takes place at the medieval Olavinlinna , built in 1475...
(Eva), the Staatstheater Bonn (Ariadne and Leonore), the Staatstheater Nürnberg
Staatstheater Nürnberg
The Staatstheater Nürnberg is a theatre building in Nuremburg. One of the largest theatres in Germany, it is housed in the Opernhaus Nürnberg, built from 1903 to 1905 in the Art Nouveau by the architect Heinrich Seeling.-Sources:*...
(Alcina), the Staatsoper Stuttgart
Staatsoper Stuttgart
The Staatsoper Stuttgart is a German opera company based in Stuttgart, Germany.-History:The Stuttgart Staatsoper forms part of the Stuttgart State Theatre , which is a a three-branch-theatre complex and represents the largest theatre of its kind in Europe...
(Alcina), Theater Lübeck
Theater Lübeck
The Theater Lübeck is one of the largest theaters in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein...
(Tatyana in Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
) and the Vancouver Opera
Vancouver Opera
Vancouver Opera is the second largest performing arts organization in British Columbia and the largest opera company in western Canada.It performs in the Queen Elizabeth Theatre accompanied currently by the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, one of two specialized opera orchestras in Canada...
(the Marschallin and Agathe). She has also performed in concerts with the American Symphony Orchestra
American Symphony Orchestra
The American Symphony Orchestra is a New York-based American orchestra founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski, then aged 80. Following Maestro Stokowski's departure, Kazuyoshi Akiyama was appointed Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra from 1973-1978. Music Directors during the early...
, the Boston Masterworks Chorale, the Brooklyn Philharmonic
Brooklyn Philharmonic
The Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, commonly known as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, is an American orchestra based in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City...
(concert performances of Violetta in La Traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
and Micaela in Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
), the International Congress for Medieval Music, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival
Norfolk Chamber Music Festival
The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival is believed to be the oldest active music festival in North America. Set in a picturesque landscape among the Litchfield Hills of the lower Berkshires, the Festival traces its roots to the Battell family who started hosting summer concerts on the Norfolk town...
, the Orchestra of St. Luke's
Orchestra of St. Luke's
The Orchestra of St. Luke's is an American chamber orchestra based in New York City.It was founded in the summer of 1979 at the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, New York....
(as Maria in concert performances of West Side Story and in Handel and Haydn operas), the Topeka Symphony Orchestra, the University of Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players
University of Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players
The University of Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players is an American ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. It was founded in Chicago in 1964 by the American composer Ralph Shapey...
, and the Rocky Mountain Festival for Contemporary Music.