Ariel Bybee
Encyclopedia
Ariel Bybee is a mezzo-soprano
who has had a distinguished career as a soloist, voice teacher and university opera director. According to Opera News (June 2000), she was "a prominent mezzo at the Metropolitan Opera for eighteen seasons." She sang over 450 performances at the Metropolitan Opera
.
Bybee received a bachelors degree from Brigham Young University
in 1965. She later did advance musical studies in New York where one of her voice teachers was Cornelius L. Reid
.
Bybee is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has soloed with the Tabernacle Choir. At the 2001 dedication of the Winter Quarters, Nebraska Temple Bybee sang a solo.
when she replaced Teresa Stratas
on very short notice. Further acclaim came from her performances as Annio in the Met's premiere of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
. Bybee has sung numerous leading roles at the Met including Hansel in Hänsel und Gretel, Nichlausse in Les contes d'Hoffmann
and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly
. She made her highly successful debut at the Washington, D.C. Opera in a new production of Menotti's The Consul
and her European opera debut as Melisande
at the Sofia Music Weeks in Bulgaria. She made her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic (Lorin Maazel
, conducting) in a concert performance of Elektra
at Carnegie Hall
.
Bybee's professional talents were discovered by Maestro Maurice Abravanel
of the Utah Symphony and later by Kurt Herbert Adler
of the San Francisco Opera
. Adler invited Bybee to sing in San Francisco for several seasons, during which she appeared in many roles, including the title roles in Carmen
, Musetta in La bohème
and Inez in La favorita. She first performed on the East Coast when she sang the title role of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea at the Tanglewood Music Festival
. In the spring of 1985, Bybee appeared on stage with the New York City Ballet
in its production of Songs of the Auvergne, and she debuted at the Ravinia Festival in Elektra conducted by James Levine
. She made her debut in Kuhmo, Finland in Pergolesi
's Stabat Mater
and Vivaldi's 'Gloria.
in New York City. For ten years, she was Artist-in-Residence and Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, teaching voice and directing operatic productions. In 2007, her UNL production of Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella won the International Trophy (Grand Prize) in competition at the Waterford (Ireland) International Festival of Light Opera. When she became an emerita professor at UNL, the university endowed the Ariel Bybee Chair of Opera Performance in her honor. In 2008, she moved to the University of Utah where she teaches voice.
, singing the role of Flora. As well as being heard on numerous Live from Lincoln Center
telecasts, Bybee has recorded two solo albums: O Divine Redeemer and Eternal Day.
review of Carmen, San Francisco Opera, 1973.
"The stars for the concert of international reputation were Beverly Hoch and Ariel Bybee. The soloists conquered by clear, clean, pensive presentations." Newspaper review of Stabat Mater at the Kuhmo Festival, Helsinki, Finland, 1992.
"[T]he fresh, centered voices of Dawn Upshaw and Ariel Bybee, in tandem with the skillful conducting of James Levine, provided most of the joy at the Metropolitan Opera Tuesday night." Tim Page, New York Times review of Carmen, 1986.
"Filling in for…Murray was Ariel Bybee in the role of Annio. She does things with roles, thinking through each action and note to arrive at movements and phrasing that are always right on the mark and which appear natural for the character. She looks and sounds awfully good this season….One of those magic moments happened during the Tito premier: the first act duet between Annio (Bybee) and Servillia (Robinson) was exquisite. You had to be there—I can’t describe it adequately." WBAI-FM review of La clemenza di Tito, Metropolitan Opera, 1984.
"[In her debut as Jenny in Mahagonny] Bybee was sensational, not only vocally but in her look and her grasp of the role…. Her vocal command…was superb…. The role of Jenny tops with a C and she handled everything with a bright, focused tone and a tight but not unpleasant vibrato that added urgency to the part…. From now on, the role of Jenny will have to be judged against her definitive interpretation." Barton Wimble, New York Daily News
review of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Metropolitan Opera, 1981.
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
who has had a distinguished career as a soloist, voice teacher and university opera director. According to Opera News (June 2000), she was "a prominent mezzo at the Metropolitan Opera for eighteen seasons." She sang over 450 performances at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
.
Bybee received a bachelors degree from Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
in 1965. She later did advance musical studies in New York where one of her voice teachers was Cornelius L. Reid
Cornelius L. Reid
Cornelius Lawrence Reid , was a well-known vocal pedagogue in New York City, specialist in the bel canto technique, and author of books on bel canto.- Life :Childhood...
.
Bybee is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has soloed with the Tabernacle Choir. At the 2001 dedication of the Winter Quarters, Nebraska Temple Bybee sang a solo.
Performance history
Bybee sang at the Met in every season from 1977 through 1995. She first earned accolades at the Met for her performance as Jenny in Rise and Fall of the City of MahagonnyRise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht. It was first performed in Leipzig on 9 March 1930.-Composition history:...
when she replaced Teresa Stratas
Teresa Stratas
Teresa Stratas, OC , is a retired Canadian operatic soprano. She is especially well-known for her award-winning recording of Alban Berg's Lulu.-Early life and career:...
on very short notice. Further acclaim came from her performances as Annio in the Met's premiere of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...
. Bybee has sung numerous leading roles at the Met including Hansel in Hänsel und Gretel, Nichlausse in Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann is an opéra by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on short stories by E. T. A...
and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
. She made her highly successful debut at the Washington, D.C. Opera in a new production of Menotti's The Consul
The Consul
The Consul is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, his first full-length opera. Its first performance was on March 1, 1950, at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia with Patricia Neway as the lead heroine Magda Sorel, Gloria Lane as the secretary of the consulate,...
and her European opera debut as Melisande
Melisande
Melisande can refer to:* Melisande of Jerusalem, the daughter of Baldwin II* Melisande , a painting* Melisande Shahrizai, the primary villainess of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series...
at the Sofia Music Weeks in Bulgaria. She made her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic (Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...
, conducting) in a concert performance of Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
.
Bybee's professional talents were discovered by Maestro Maurice Abravanel
Maurice Abravanel
Maurice Abravanel was aSwiss-American Jewish conductor of classical music. He is remembered as the conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years.-Life:...
of the Utah Symphony and later by Kurt Herbert Adler
Kurt Herbert Adler
Kurt Herbert Adler was an Austrian-born American conductor and opera house director.Adler was born in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish family. His work in the field of music led him to become the assistant to Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival in 1936 and he also worked in Italy...
of the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
. Adler invited Bybee to sing in San Francisco for several seasons, during which she appeared in many roles, including the title roles 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...
, Musetta in La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
and Inez in La favorita. She first performed on the East Coast when she sang the title role of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea at the Tanglewood Music Festival
Tanglewood Music Festival
The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts....
. In the spring of 1985, Bybee appeared on stage with the New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...
in its production of Songs of the Auvergne, and she debuted at the Ravinia Festival in Elektra conducted by James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...
. She made her debut in Kuhmo, Finland in Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist.-Biography:Born at Iesi, Pergolesi studied music there under a local musician, Francesco Santini, before going to Naples in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco and Francesco Feo among others...
's Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Roman Catholic hymn to Mary. It has been variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III...
and Vivaldi's 'Gloria.
Teaching history
Before making her debut with the San Francisco Opera Company, Bybee taught junior high school music for five years, first in Utah and then in California. Starting in 1993, Bybee began teaching private students in her New York studio, as well as teaching both at the Lee Strasberg Institute and the American Musical and Dramatic AcademyAmerican Musical and Dramatic Academy
The American Musical and Dramatic Academy , is a college conservatory for the performing arts located in New York City and Los Angeles, California....
in New York City. For ten years, she was Artist-in-Residence and Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, teaching voice and directing operatic productions. In 2007, her UNL production of Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella won the International Trophy (Grand Prize) in competition at the Waterford (Ireland) International Festival of Light Opera. When she became an emerita professor at UNL, the university endowed the Ariel Bybee Chair of Opera Performance in her honor. In 2008, she moved to the University of Utah where she teaches voice.
Recordings
Bybee can be heard in Franco Zeffirelli's 1983 motion picture of La traviataLa 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...
, singing the role of Flora. As well as being heard on numerous Live from Lincoln Center
Live from Lincoln Center
Live From Lincoln Center is an ongoing series of musical performances produced by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in conjunction with Thirteen/WNET in New York City....
telecasts, Bybee has recorded two solo albums: O Divine Redeemer and Eternal Day.
Reviews
"Hats off, gentlemen, a Carmen!—Her name is Ariel Bybee…." Martin Bernheimer, Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
review of Carmen, San Francisco Opera, 1973.
"The stars for the concert of international reputation were Beverly Hoch and Ariel Bybee. The soloists conquered by clear, clean, pensive presentations." Newspaper review of Stabat Mater at the Kuhmo Festival, Helsinki, Finland, 1992.
"[T]he fresh, centered voices of Dawn Upshaw and Ariel Bybee, in tandem with the skillful conducting of James Levine, provided most of the joy at the Metropolitan Opera Tuesday night." Tim Page, New York Times review of Carmen, 1986.
"Filling in for…Murray was Ariel Bybee in the role of Annio. She does things with roles, thinking through each action and note to arrive at movements and phrasing that are always right on the mark and which appear natural for the character. She looks and sounds awfully good this season….One of those magic moments happened during the Tito premier: the first act duet between Annio (Bybee) and Servillia (Robinson) was exquisite. You had to be there—I can’t describe it adequately." WBAI-FM review of La clemenza di Tito, Metropolitan Opera, 1984.
"[In her debut as Jenny in Mahagonny] Bybee was sensational, not only vocally but in her look and her grasp of the role…. Her vocal command…was superb…. The role of Jenny tops with a C and she handled everything with a bright, focused tone and a tight but not unpleasant vibrato that added urgency to the part…. From now on, the role of Jenny will have to be judged against her definitive interpretation." Barton Wimble, New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
review of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Metropolitan Opera, 1981.
Publications
- The Modern Singing Master: Essays in Honor of Cornelius L. ReidCornelius L. ReidCornelius Lawrence Reid , was a well-known vocal pedagogue in New York City, specialist in the bel canto technique, and author of books on bel canto.- Life :Childhood...
. Edited by Ariel Bybee and James E. Ford. Lanham, MD & London: Scarecrow Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8108-4241-6