Margaret Lloyd
Encyclopedia
Margaret Lloyd is an American
soprano
who is particularly known for her performances in contemporary opera
s and concert works. She has sung in the world premieres of several operas, most notably portraying the role of Lightfoot McClendon in the premiere of Carlisle Floyd
's Cold Sassy Tree
at the Houston Grand Opera
in 2000. She has also sung in the world premieres of several works by composer Michael Torke
.
. She graduated from Ames High School
in 1991 and then entered Northwestern University
where she earned a bachelors degree in vocal performance in 1995. In 1996 she joined the Young American Artists Program at Glimmerglass Opera
, making her professional opera debut with the company that year as Margret Borden in Jack Beeson
's Lizzie Borden
. The following year she played Curley’s Wife in Glimmerglass's production of Carlisle Floyd
's Of Mice and Men
.
In 1999 Lloyd returned to Glimmerglass Opera again to appear in the world premieres of three one act operas that were presented together under the title Center City. For this production she portrayed the role of Jessica in Deborah Drattell
and Wendy Wasserstein
's The Festival of Regrets, the role of The Daughter in Michael Torke
and A.R. Gurney's Strawberry Fields, and the Woman with sun reflector in Robert Beaser
and Terrence McNally
's The Food of Love. The works were also presented with the same casts at the New York City Opera
that year. She also sang as a soloist in the world premieres of Aaron Jay Kernis
's Garden of Light and Michael Torke's Four Seasons with the New York Philharmonic
, the New York Choral Artists, and the American Boychoir under conductor Kurt Masur
at Avery Fisher Hall
. In addition, Lloyd sang the role of Gretel in Engelbert Humperdinck
's Hänsel und Gretel with Chicago Opera Theater
.
In 2000 Lloyd portrayed Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein
's Candide
at Central City Opera
. She also appeared at the Houston Grand Opera
(HGO) as Lightfoot McClendon in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd
's Cold Sassy Tree
, a role which she recorded and reprised at the Austin Lyric Opera
(2001), San Diego Opera
(2002), Utah Opera (2003), Opera Carolina
(2003), and Opera Omaha
(2004). In 2001 she portrayed the roles of Pamina in The Magic Flute
and Amy in Mark Adamo
's Little Women
at the HGO. The latter performance was recorded live for broadcast on PBS's Great Performances
and subsequently released on CD and DVD. That same year she performed the role of Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore
with Santa Fe Opera
and sang the world premiere of Michael Torke's Four Proverbs as Alice Tully Hall
, later singing the premiere of the chamber orchestra version of that work with the American Composers Orchestra
at Zankel Hall in 2005. In 2002 she portrayed the role of Sophie in Richard Strauss
's Der Rosenkavalier
with Opera Carolina and Cunegonde in Candide with Portland Opera
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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 known for her performances in contemporary opera
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...
s and concert works. She has sung in the world premieres of several operas, most notably portraying the role of Lightfoot McClendon in the premiere of Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
's Cold Sassy Tree
Cold Sassy Tree (opera)
Cold Sassy Tree is an opera composed by Carlisle Floyd, based on the 1984 novel by Olive Ann Burns.Cold Sassy Tree was Floyd’s tenth opera and his first comic opera. It had its world premiere on April 14, 2000, at the Houston Grand Opera, with a production staged by Australian filmmaker Bruce...
at the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
in 2000. She has also sung in the world premieres of several works by composer Michael Torke
Michael Torke
Michael Torke is an American composer who writes music influenced by jazz and minimalism. Sometimes described as a post-minimalist, his most postminimal piece is Four Proverbs, in which the syllable for each pitch is fixed and variations in the melody produce streams of nonsense words. Other works...
.
Biography
Lloyd was born and raised in Ames, IowaAmes, Iowa
Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County, and approximately north of Des Moines. The U.S. Census Bureau designates that Ames, Iowa metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County, and which, when combined with the Boone, Iowa...
. She graduated from Ames High School
Ames High School
Ames High School is the sole high school in Ames, Story County, Iowa.-Academics:January 2008 —Ames High School has been named one of the top high schools in the country by U.S. News and World Report. In its recently released rankings, the magazine awarded Ames High School a silver medal, one of...
in 1991 and then entered Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
where she earned a bachelors degree in vocal performance in 1995. In 1996 she joined the Young American Artists Program at Glimmerglass Opera
Glimmerglass Opera
Glimmerglass Festival is an opera company which was founded in 1975 by Peter Macris and presents an annual season of operas at the Alice Busch Opera Theater on Otsego Lake eight miles north of Cooperstown, New York, United States.The summer-only season usually consists of four operas performed in...
, making her professional opera debut with the company that year as Margret Borden in Jack Beeson
Jack Beeson
Jack Beeson was an American composer. He was known particularly for his operas, the best known of which are Lizzie Borden, Hello Out There! and The Sweet Bye and Bye.-Biography:...
's Lizzie Borden
Lizzie Borden (opera)
Lizzie Borden is the best known opera by Jack Beeson. It is based on the real-life case of Lizzie Borden.It was written in 1965 and premiered on March 25, 1965 by the New York City Opera conducted by Anton Coppola. The English libretto is by Kenward Elmslie after a scenario by Richard Plant...
. The following year she played Curley’s Wife in Glimmerglass's production of Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
's Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men (opera)
Of Mice and Men is an opera in three acts by the American composer Carlisle Floyd. The English libretto was written by Floyd and is based on the novella of the same name by John Steinbeck. The opera was composed in 1969.- History :...
.
In 1999 Lloyd returned to Glimmerglass Opera again to appear in the world premieres of three one act operas that were presented together under the title Center City. For this production she portrayed the role of Jessica in Deborah Drattell
Deborah Drattell
Deborah Drattell is an American composer. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, and started her career in music as a violinist. Her compositions have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Tanglewood and Caramoor Music Festivals, and many other groups and venues...
and Wendy Wasserstein
Wendy Wasserstein
Wendy Wasserstein was an American playwright and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University...
's The Festival of Regrets, the role of The Daughter in Michael Torke
Michael Torke
Michael Torke is an American composer who writes music influenced by jazz and minimalism. Sometimes described as a post-minimalist, his most postminimal piece is Four Proverbs, in which the syllable for each pitch is fixed and variations in the melody produce streams of nonsense words. Other works...
and A.R. Gurney's Strawberry Fields, and the Woman with sun reflector in Robert Beaser
Robert Beaser
Robert Beaser is an American composer.-Biography:Beaser was brought up in a non-musical family. His father was a physician and mother was a chemist. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts where he distinguished himself at a young age as a percussionist, composer and conductor...
and Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
's The Food of Love. The works were also presented with the same casts at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
that year. She also sang as a soloist in the world premieres of Aaron Jay Kernis
Aaron Jay Kernis
Aaron Jay Kernis is an American composer and professor at the Yale School of Music.-Biography:Aaron Jay Kernis is Jewish, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Yale University .,Notable works include the...
's Garden of Light and Michael Torke's Four Seasons with the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
, the New York Choral Artists, and the American Boychoir under conductor Kurt Masur
Kurt Masur
Kurt Masur is a German conductor, particularly noted for his interpretation of German Romantic music.- Biography :Masur was born in Brieg, Lower Silesia, Germany and studied piano, composition and conducting in Leipzig, Saxony. Masur has been married three times...
at Avery Fisher Hall
Avery Fisher Hall
Avery Fisher Hall is a concert hall, in New York City and is part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex. It is the home of the New York Philharmonic, with a capacity of 2,738 seats.-History:...
. In addition, Lloyd sang the role of Gretel in Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
's Hänsel und Gretel with Chicago Opera Theater
Chicago Opera Theater
The Chicago Opera Theater is an opera company that was founded as the Chicago Opera Studio in 1974 by Alan Stone to give vocal students performance experience, although it has grown into a professional opera company...
.
In 2000 Lloyd portrayed Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's Candide
Candide (operetta)
Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...
at Central City Opera
Central City Opera
Central City Opera is the fifth-oldest opera company in the United States, founded in 1932. Each festival is presented in the 550-seat historic Central City Opera House built in 1878 in the gold mining era town of Central City, Colorado. Pelham G...
. She also appeared at the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
(HGO) as Lightfoot McClendon in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
's Cold Sassy Tree
Cold Sassy Tree (opera)
Cold Sassy Tree is an opera composed by Carlisle Floyd, based on the 1984 novel by Olive Ann Burns.Cold Sassy Tree was Floyd’s tenth opera and his first comic opera. It had its world premiere on April 14, 2000, at the Houston Grand Opera, with a production staged by Australian filmmaker Bruce...
, a role which she recorded and reprised at the Austin Lyric Opera
Austin Lyric Opera
Austin Lyric Opera, founded in 1986, is an internationally known opera company based in Austin, Texas.It also operates the Armstrong Community Music School....
(2001), San Diego Opera
San Diego Opera
The San Diego Opera Association is a professional opera company located in the city of San Diego, California and is a member of OPERA America. It was founded in 1950 to present productions by San Francisco Opera in the San Diego area...
(2002), Utah Opera (2003), Opera Carolina
Opera Carolina
Opera Carolina is a professional opera company located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company reaches over 75,000 people from North Carolina and South Carolina....
(2003), and Opera Omaha
Opera Omaha
Opera Omaha is an opera company in Omaha, Nebraska. It is well known for premiering Wakonda's Dream, a contemporary opera about Native Americans set in the Niobrara....
(2004). In 2001 she portrayed the roles of Pamina in The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
and Amy in Mark Adamo
Mark Adamo
Mark Adamo is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While he has composed the symphonic cantata "Late Victorians, "Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra," and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house:...
's Little Women
Little Women (opera)
Little Women is the first opera composed by American composer Mark Adamo to his own libretto after Louisa May Alcott's tale of growing up in New England after the American Civil War, Little Women. The opera also includes text by John Bunyan , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Little Women (1998) is the...
at the HGO. The latter performance was recorded live for broadcast on PBS's Great Performances
Great Performances
Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on Public Broadcasting Service public television since 1972...
and subsequently released on CD and DVD. That same year she performed the role of Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
with Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...
and sang the world premiere of Michael Torke's Four Proverbs as Alice Tully Hall
Alice Tully Hall
Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. It is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and philanthropist whose donations assisted in the construction of the hall...
, later singing the premiere of the chamber orchestra version of that work with the American Composers Orchestra
American Composers Orchestra
The American Composers Orchestra is an American orchestra based in New York City. It is the only orchestra in the world dedicated solely to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers...
at Zankel Hall in 2005. In 2002 she portrayed the role of Sophie in 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...
's 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...
with Opera Carolina and Cunegonde in Candide with Portland Opera
Portland Opera
Portland Opera is an American opera company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon. Its mainstage performances take place in the Keller Auditorium, while the Portland Opera Studio Theater at the Hampton center is used for performances of chamber operas...
.