With her warm, richly timbred voice, mezzo-soprano Melody Wilson has quickly made a name for herself in Europe and the US, appearing on Opera America Magazine’s winter 2024 cover as Fricka in Das Rheingold.
In 2024-25, she returns to Dallas Symphony for Rossweisse in Die Walküre, and makes debuts with the Charleston Symphony in Paul Moravec’s oratorio Sanctuary Road as well as with Virginia Opera in the world premiere of Loving v. Virginia by Damian Geter.
In 2023-24, she appeared in Wagner all over the United States, making her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Mary in Der fliegende Hollander, and returning to Seattle Opera as Fricka in Das Rheingold and to Dallas Symphony as Rossweisse in Die Walküre. She also performed Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Atlanta Opera, Sanctuary Road at the Bach Festival in Orlando, and her first Amneris with Union Avenue Opera. On the concert stage, she made her debut at Carnegie Hall with Mozart’s Requiem and with New West Symphony in Handel’s Messiah.
Melody Wilson enjoyed a varied 2022-23 season, covering Olga in Eugene Onegin and John Adams’ new Antony and Cleopatra at San Francisco Opera, and Cousin Blanche in Terence Blanchard’s Champion at the Metropolitan Opera. Her season commenced with Olga and Meg Page in Falstaff with Union Avenue Opera, and a concert performance of Sanctuary Road with Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, which she reprised in the staged opera version of the work with the Lancaster Symphony. She returned to a favorite role, Fenena in Nabucco, with Washington Concert Opera and concluded her season with Beethoven’s Ninth with the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra and the world premiere of Bodies on the Line by Martin Rokeach with Oakland Symphony.
Other recent career highlights were Brahms’ Alto-Rhapsody with San Francisco Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth with Kalamazoo Symphony, Olga in Eugene Onegin with Dallas Symphony and Seattle Opera, Principessa di Bouillon in Adriana Lecouvreur with Baltimore Concert Opera, Mrs. Herring with the Princeton Festival, Suzuki with Indianapolis Opera, Mercedes with Cincinnati Opera as well as 3 roles in 3 commissioned operas for Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she also appeared as Addie in Regina by Mark Blitzstein. With Union Avenue Opera, she was seen as Fenena, Linda in Kurt Weills’s Lost in The Stars, and Mrs. Miller in Doubt by Douglas J. Cuomo, garnering her a nomination for the St. Louis Theater Circle Awards in the category “Outstanding achievement in opera” for the latter role.
In the beginning of her career, she performed in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles with Opera Delaware and Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she also covered Denyce Graves in the role of Emelda in the world premiere of Champion.
In Europe, Melody Wilson sang in the world premiere of Mondparsifal Alpha 1-8 (Jonathan Meese’s adaption of Parsifal) under Simone Young at the Wiener Festwochen and the Berliner Festspiele, Mrs. Sedley in Peter Grimes, and Mercedes in Carmen, both at the Theater Bremen (Germany) as well as Maddalena in Rigoletto at the State Opera Budapest.
Melody Wilson is a five-time recipient of the Jessye Norman Fellowship and a winner of the “Gabriela Benacková Competition” in Prague and the “International Czech and Slovak Competition”.