Soprano Alicia Russell Tagert has sung throughout the United States, beginning with her professional debut with her hometown Asheville Symphony Orchestra in 2013. She recently debuted in 2024 with Charlottesville Opera in The Music Man as Marian Paroo (cvr) and performed a solo recital in Richmond, VA. During the 2023-24 season, Alicia Russell Tagert continued to prove herself an adept musician, debuting with Virginia Opera as Waldvögel in their touring production of Siegfried, where in one performance she also learned and sang Brünnhilde on 5 hours’ notice. In the summer of 2023, Alicia appeared with the Glimmerglass Festival, singing Queen of Eldorado in Francesca Zambello’s celebrated Candide, and for select July performances she returned to the role of Musetta in La bohème. In April 2023, she debuted Gretel in an English translation of Hansel and Gretel with Opera Birmingham. In a glittering season of debuts in 2022-23, she debuted at Cincinnati Opera as Morgan in Fierce as part of the anticipated world premiere, and “brought cheers from the opening-night audience” (OperaNews), prior her role debut of a “bright and effortless soprano” as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro in a return to Fargo-Moorhead Opera’s stage in North Dakota (Fargo Inforum).
Alicia was a Gate City Bank Young Artist with Fargo-Moorhead Opera in winter 2021, performing Maya in Three Way and Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia. In the 2019–2020 season, Ms. Tagert returned to Toledo Opera to debut the role of Musetta in La bohème, after spending the 2018-19 season as their soprano resident artist. She was scheduled to make her company debut in June 2020 with Lyric Opera Unlimited in the anticipated Chicago premiere of Blue, which has been postponed due to COVID-19. Her past performances include Musetta|La bohème, Samantha/Silver Dollar|The Ballad of Baby Doe and Frasquita|Carmen at Toledo Opera. Her numerous credits at the Seagle Festival include the title role in Robert Carl’s workshop of Harmony, Daisy Buchanan|The Great Gatsby and Pamina|Die Zauberflöte. She has also appeared, as Donna Elvira|Don Giovanni, the title role in Savitri, and Elaine|Later the Same Evening with Northwestern University Opera Theater; Sylvie|Freedom Ride (workshop) with MassOpera; and Rosalinde|Die Fledermaus with Boston University Tanglewood Institute.
Equally recognized for her concert performances, Ms. Tagert debuted in 2022 with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. In 2020, she sang as the soprano soloist in a reduced Messiah concert with Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra (virtual). She was scheduled to appear in the 2020 season as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Highland Park Symphony Orchestra in Chicago (cancelled due to COVID-19). In 2019, she sang Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra and performed as a recitalist with the Musicians Club of Women in Chicago in February 2020. Past concert performances include Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, Handel’s Laudate Pueri Dominium, Utrecht Te Deum and Messiah; Honnegger’s King David; Mozart’s Requiem and Missa in C Minor; and Vivaldi’s Dixit Dominus, RV 807.
A competitive force, Ms. Tagert’s 2024 awards include Third Prize in the National Arts and Letters Competition (DC Chapter) and Second Place in the Heafner/Williams Competition. In 2023, she was a Finalist in both the BMVC Opera Ebony Competition and in the distinguished Lotte Lenya Competition, hosted annually by the Kurt Weill Foundation. She was a 2022 semi-finalist in the Shreveport Opera Mary Jacobs Singer of the Year Competition and a finalist in the 2022 Opera Birmingham Vocal Competition. She is a four-time award winner in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. Her prizes include an Encouragement Award in the 2022 (South Carolina district), a twice awarded Regional Finalist in the Southeastern Region in 2021 (Georgia District) and 2020 (North Carolina District), as well as an Encouragement Award in 2019 (Middle/East Tennessee District). She also won the 2018 Northwestern University Concerto/Aria Competition and received the Ginger Meyer Scholarship in the 2018 Musicians Club of Women Competition.She holds a Master of Music from Northwestern University and Bachelor of Music from Furman University.