Soprano

American soprano Pamela Armstrong has performed leading roles with many of the world's preeminent opera companies including the Metropolitan Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera; in France at L’Opéra National de Paris Bastille, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, L’Opéra de Marseille, and L’Opéra Grand Avignon; in Germany at Semperoper Dresden, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Hamburgische Staatsoper; in Italy at Teatro Regio di Torino and Teatro Verdi Trieste; in Spain at Ópera de Oviedo. She has also performed with Korea National Opera as well as a Wiener Staatsoper tour to China. In the United States, she has performed leading roles with the MET, Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, San Diego Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Portland Opera, Opera Colorado, and Opera Pacific as well as with other regional American companies, including Palm Beach Opera and Tulsa Opera.

 

Ms. Armstrong has garnered critical acclaim as a Strauss soprano: the title role in Arabella, the Countess in Capriccio, and Christine in Intermezzo; as a Puccini lyric soprano: Mimì in La bohème and Magda in La Rondine; as a Mozart soprano: both Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Ilia in Idomeneo, the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Pamina in The Magic Flute, and Fiordiligi in Cosí fan tutte. She commands an unusually wide repertoire, ranging from the title role in Handel’s Alcina to Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, as well as Elvira in I Puritani, Violetta in La Traviata, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, and the title roles in Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas and Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. Her Verdi roles are Violetta, Desdemona, and Alice Ford; her French roles include Marguerite in Faust, the Four Heroines in The Tales of Hoffmann, the title role in Thaïs, Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmelites, and Micaëla in Carmen. In 2017 Ms. Armstrong sang to great acclaim in Bernstein’s Kaddish with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and was soprano soloist in Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder with the St. Petersburg Symphony. In 2018 she was the soprano soloist in Britten’s War Requiem with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, and also sang the Brahms Requiem and Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder with the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica. Engagements in 2019 included performances as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with the Syracuse and Tulsa Operas. Ms. Armstrong performs her signature role of La Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro with Syracuse and Tri-Cities Opera in 2023.

 

Her symphonic work includes performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Vladimir Jurowski), Detroit Symphony (Nemee Järvi), Ravinia Festival (Christoph Eschenbach), Milwaukee Symphony (Edo de Waart), Aspen Music Festival (David Zinman), the New Jersey Symphony (Nemee Järvi) as well as performances with regional orchestras in the United States and Germany.

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Concert repertoire includes Bach’s St. John Passion and Magnificat; Barber‘s Knoxville, Summer of 1915; Berg’s Sieben Frühe Lieder; Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’Été; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9; Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne; Copland’s Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson; Durufle’s Requiem; Faure’s Requiem; Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3; Handel’s Messiah; Haydn’s The Creation; Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder and Symphony No. 4; McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio; Mendelssohn’s Elijah; Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Requiem; Orff’s Carmina Burana; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater; Poulenc’s Gloria; Ravel’s Schéhérazade; Rorem’s Six Songs for High Voice; Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder; Tippett’s A Child of Our Time; Verdi’s Requiem and Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.

 

Ms. Armstrong was awarded New York City Opera’s Beverly Sills Prize, and is featured on DVD in a live performance recorded by the BBC of the Glyndebourne Festival production of Die Fledermaus.