Mary Dunleavy
Encyclopedia
Mary Dunleavy is an American soprano who has performed with major opera companies and orchestras around the world. She is a native of Old Saybrook, Connecticut
.
She grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Pascack Hills High School
in 1984. Dunleavy attended Northwestern University
for her undergraduate degrees and received a Master's Degree in Music at the University of Texas at Austin
.
In the United States, she has performed with the Metropolitan Opera
, San Francisco Opera
, Lyric Opera of Chicago
, Houston Grand Opera
, Los Angeles Opera
, Washington National Opera
, New York City Opera
, The Dallas Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia
, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
, Boston Lyric Opera
, Portland Opera
, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and others.
Outside the U.S., her operatic performances have been with De Nederlandse Opera
(Amsterdam), Gran Teatro del Liceu (Barcelona), Opéra National de Paris, Teatro di San Carlo
(Naples), La Monnaie
(Brussels), Municipal Theater of Santiago
, Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin), Hamburgische Staatsoper, Opéra de Montréal
, and others.
Orchestral appearances have been with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
at the Hollywood Bowl
under Leonard Slatkin
, Cincinnati May Festival
with James Conlon
, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris under John Nelson
, St. Louis Symphony under David Robertson
and the late Hans Vonk, San Francisco Symphony
under Robert Spano
, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
under Donald Runnicles
, Philadelphia Orchestra
under Charles Dutoit
, the Lanaudiere Festival under Jacques Lacombe
, and others.
She earned her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University
and her graduate degree from The University of Texas at Austin. She has studied with Renata Scotto
, Mignon Dunn, and Rita Shane
.
• Violetta — La traviata
• Gilda — Rigoletto
• Musetta — La Boheme
• Giulietta — I Capuleti e i Montecchi
• Adina — L'elisir d'amore
• Pamina — Die Zauberflöte
• Konstanze — Die Entführung aus dem Serail
• Countess Almaviva — Le nozze di Figaro
• Fiordiligi — Così fan tutte
• Thaïs — Thaïs
• Léïla — Les pêcheurs de perles
• Micaela — Carmen
• Hoffmann Heroines — Les Contes d'Hoffmann
• Infanta Donna Clara - Der Zwerg
From 1994 through 2002, she sang the Queen of the Night
in Die Zauberflöte in 84 performances. She retired the role in 2002. In 2006, she became only the third woman to sing both Pamina and the Queen of the Night for the Metropolitan Opera (Lucia Popp
and Colette Boky
preceded her).
Old Saybrook, Connecticut
Old Saybrook is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 10,367 at the 2000 census. It contains the incorporated borough of Fenwick, as well as the census-designated places of Old Saybrook Center and Saybrook Manor.-History:...
.
She grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Pascack Hills High School
Pascack Hills High School
Pascack Hills High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school, one of two high schools that are part of the Pascack Valley Regional High School District in Bergen County, New Jersey. PHHS serves the residents of both Montvale, where the campus is located, and the neighboring community...
in 1984. Dunleavy attended 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....
for her undergraduate degrees and received a Master's Degree in Music at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
.
In the United States, she has performed with 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...
, 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...
, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
, 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...
, Los Angeles Opera
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...
, Washington National Opera
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...
, 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...
, The Dallas Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia
Opera Company of Philadelphia
The Opera Company of Philadelphia is an American opera company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the city's only company producing grand opera. The organization produces four fully staged opera productions annually, encompassing works from the seventeenth through the 21st century...
, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is a summer opera festival held in St. Louis, Missouri. Typically four operas, all sung in English, are presented each season, which runs from late May to late June. Performances are accompanied by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, which is divided into two...
, Boston Lyric Opera
Boston Lyric Opera
Boston Lyric Opera is an American opera company based in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1976.Each season, BLO produces three mainstage productions at the Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre in Boston and a fully staged, one-hour English language version of a popular opera for school...
, 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...
, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and others.
Outside the U.S., her operatic performances have been with De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera , in Amsterdam, is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Het Muziektheater, a modern building designed by Cees Dam which opened in 1986....
(Amsterdam), Gran Teatro del Liceu (Barcelona), Opéra National de Paris, Teatro di San Carlo
Teatro di San Carlo
The Real Teatro di San Carlo is an opera house in Naples, Italy. It is the oldest continuously active such venue in Europe.Founded by the Bourbon Charles VII of Naples of the Spanish branch of the dynasty, the theatre was inaugurated on 4 November 1737 — the king's name day — with a performance...
(Naples), La Monnaie
La Monnaie
Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....
(Brussels), Municipal Theater of Santiago
Municipal Theater of Santiago
The Teatro Municipal is the most important stage theatre and opera house in Santiago, Chile.-History and overview:The Chilean government ceded a significant parcel of land in downtown Santiago to the municipality, in 1848, and an 1853 decree by President Manuel Montt Torres provided for the...
, Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin), Hamburgische Staatsoper, Opéra de Montréal
Opéra de Montréal
Opéra de Montréal is an opera company in Montreal. It performs at the Place des Arts theatre complex in downtown Montreal, in the borough of Ville-Marie. It was founded in 1980...
, and others.
Orchestral appearances have been with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...
at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
under Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...
, Cincinnati May Festival
Cincinnati May Festival
The Cincinnati May Festival is a two-week annual choral festival, held during the last two weekends in May in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. The festival's roots go back to the 1840s, when Saengerfests were held in that city, bringing singers from all over the United States and abroad to perform large...
with James Conlon
James Conlon
James Conlon is an American conductor and the current Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera.-Early years:Conlon grew up in a family of five children on Cherry Street in Douglaston, Queens, New York. His mother, Angeline L. Conlon, was a freelance writer. His father was an assistant to the New...
, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris under John Nelson
John Nelson (conductor)
John Wilton Nelson is an American conductor. Nelson studied at Wheaton College, and later at the Juilliard School of Music with Jean Morel ....
, St. Louis Symphony under David Robertson
David Robertson (conductor)
David Eric Robertson is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.-Early life:...
and the late Hans Vonk, San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...
under Robert Spano
Robert Spano
Robert Spano is an American conductor and pianist. Since 2001 he has been Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra , and he served as Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic from 1996 to 2004...
, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Robert Spano has been its music director since 2001...
under Donald Runnicles
Donald Runnicles
Donald Runnicles is a Scottish conductor who has worked extensively in other countries, particularly Germany and the USA....
, Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
under Charles Dutoit
Charles Dutoit
Charles Édouard Dutoit, is a Swiss conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of French and Russian 20th century music...
, the Lanaudiere Festival under Jacques Lacombe
Jacques Lacombe
Jacques Lacombe is a Canadian conductor.Lacombe began his musical learning with choral singing. He later trained as an organist, and continued his studies at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal and at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna...
, and others.
She earned her undergraduate degree from 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....
and her graduate degree from The University of Texas at Austin. She has studied with Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto is an Italian soprano and opera director.Recognized for her sense of style, musicality and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered one of the preeminent singers of her generation, specializing in the bel canto repertoire with excursions into the verismo and Verdi...
, Mignon Dunn, and Rita Shane
Rita Shane
Rita Shane is a dramatic coloratura soprano. She studied at Barnard College and under Beverly Peck Johnson, and made her operatic debut as the doll Olympia in Les contes d'Hoffmann, at Chattanooga in 1964...
.
Roles
Her roles include:• Violetta — 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...
• Gilda — Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
• Musetta — La Boheme
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...
• Giulietta — I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an Italian opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini.The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare...
• Adina — L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
• Pamina — Die Zauberflöte
• Konstanze — Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
• Countess Almaviva — Le nozze di Figaro
• Fiordiligi — Così 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....
• Thaïs — Thaïs
Thaïs (opera)
Thaïs is an opera in three acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet based on the novel Thaïs by Anatole France. It was first performed at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on 16 March 1894, starring the American soprano Sybil Sanderson, for whom Massenet had written the title role...
• Léïla — Les pêcheurs de perles
Les pêcheurs de perles
Les pêcheurs de perles is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was first performed on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances in its initial run...
• Micaela — 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...
• Hoffmann Heroines — 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...
• Infanta Donna Clara - Der Zwerg
Der Zwerg
Der Zwerg , Op.17 is an opera in one act by Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky to a libretto by Georg Klaren, freely adapted from the short story The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde.-Composition history:...
From 1994 through 2002, she sang the Queen of the Night
Queen of the Night
-Botany:* Queen of the night, Nightblooming cereus, several genera and species of cactus* Queen of the night, Cestrum nocturnum, a woody evergreen commonly known as Night-blooming Cestrum-Music:...
in Die Zauberflöte in 84 performances. She retired the role in 2002. In 2006, she became only the third woman to sing both Pamina and the Queen of the Night for the Metropolitan Opera (Lucia Popp
Lucia Popp
Lucia Popp was a notable Slovak operatic soprano. She began her career as a soubrette soprano, and later moved into the light-lyric and lyric coloratura soprano repertoire and then the lighter Richard Strauss and Wagner operas. Her career included performances at Vienna State Opera, the...
and Colette Boky
Colette Boky
Colette Boky is a French-Canadian operatic soprano, particularly associated with lyric roles in the French, Italian, and German repertories.- Life and career :...
preceded her).
Awards
- Maria Callas Debut Artist of the Year, The Dallas Opera, 2006
- Outstanding Young Texas Exes Award, The University of Texas at Austin, 2006
- Cultural Award, American-Irish Historical Society, 2004
- Top 100 List, Irish America Magazine, 2003, 2005