Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Jessica Rivera sings John Adams


This month soprano Jessica Rivera is at the Metropolitan Opera covering the role of Pat Nixon in John Adams's Nixon in China. It's not her first "stand by your man" role in an Adams opera. She made her European debut at Netherlands Opera as Kitty Oppenheimer in his Doctor Atomic (view brief clip), a role she reprised at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In December she sang El Niño with the San Francisco Symphony under Adams's baton.

Also at the Met right now is sound designer Mark Grey, who has collaborated with Adams since the 2002 premiere of On the Transmigration of Souls for the New York Philharmonic. A gifted composer, Grey has written Ātash Sorushān ("Fire Angels") for Rivera on a co-commission from Carnegie Hall and CAL Performances. She sings the premiere of the piece on March 29th in her Zankel Hall recital, shortly after making her Cleveland Orchestra debut.

Rivera's Met Opera residency marks the ten-year anniversary of an event that changed her life: she stepped in from the chorus to sing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro during final dress rehearsals at Los Angeles Opera, which led to an invitation from Plácido Domingo and a decade of "magnificent adventure," as she writes in her new blog. Read more...