Vivica Genaux

With an utterly unique personal narrative beginning in Fairbanks, Alaska, and an international career that now spans more than two decades, mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux charms audiences and critics alike with her charisma, commitment, and astounding vocal technique. After noting that she ‘has stage presence in spades,’ Clive Paget wrote in Australia’s Limelight Magazine in April 2016 that Vivica ‘demonstrated complete mastery with her exemplary phrasing and effortless vocal dexterity. Add to that a voice of great richness, easy at the top, yet with an ability to plunge at will into a beefy bottom register, and you have what can only be described as the real deal.’

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, witnessed her professional début in 1994, when she interpreted Isabella in a Florentine Opera production of Gioachino Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri, a part that she reanimated to great acclaim in 2015 for Opera Fairbanks. Her 1997 début at New York’s Metropolitan Opera was in her most-performed rôle, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and she returned to the MET for more Rosinas in 2002. In the wake of those milestones, Rossini rôles have taken Vivica to opera houses and concert halls throughout the world. Her Angelina in La Cenerentola has been heard in her native United States in cities including Charlotte (North Carolina), West Palm Beach (Florida), and Washington, DC, and internationally in locations ranging from the prestigious Grand Théâtre de Genève, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and Wiener Staatsoper to Bremen (Germany), Rieti (Italy), and Santiago (Chile). Vivica has amassed a repertory of nine Rossini characters, one of her favorites among whom, Malcolm in La donna del lago, she revisited in concert at the Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele in June 2017.

Alongside her bel canto credentials, Vivica has been widely lauded for her performances of the music of Georg Friedrich Händel, Antonio Vivaldi, and their contemporaries.

The winner of coveted prizes including a 1997 ARIA Award, New York City Opera’s 2007 Christopher Keene Award, and Pittsburgh Opera’s 2008 Maecenas Award, Vivica enjoys sharing her experiences and expertise with new generations of singers via masterclasses and teaching opportunities. She is frequently featured in broadcasts and CD and DVD/Blu-ray recordings, expanding an impressive discography that documents the whole span of her career to date, and she continues to expand her concert and opera repertories, the latter of which now extends to more than sixty rôles. It was announced in November 2016 that Vivica is the 2017 recipient of the City of Halle’s prestigious Händel- Preis, formally awarded in June 2017.

Vivica resides close to Venice in Italy with her husband, Massimo.