Soprano Karen Jesse has been acclaimed by Opera News for her “notable musical control and gleaming tone” and hailed by the Philadelphia City Paper as “one of America’s most promising dramatic sopranos.” The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote of her performance in Wozzeck, “Some of the great sopranos of the past didn’t encompass the vocal lines of Marie as surely as Karen Jesse.” Ms. Jesse also played the Female Chorus in Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia opposite William Burden and Nathan Gunn for the Opera Company of Philadelphia. A recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Ms. Jesse sang in numerous productions there, including Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Elle in La Voix humaine, A Lady With a Cake Box in Postcard From Morocco, Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti, Magda in La Rondine, and Lady Billows in Albert Herring. She has also performed several roles for the Chautauqua Music Festival including Musetta in La Bohème and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. In 2007, Ms. Jesse sang the role of Contessa in excerpts from Le nozze di Figaro with The Richmond Symphony. In 2004, she made her Carnegie Hall debut as a member of the cast of Parsifal with the Cleveland Orchestra under Pierre Boulez. Later that year, she performed with the orchestra again in Elektra under Franz Welser-Möst. Ms. Jesse is the recipient of several awards and scholarships; in 2008 she won first place in the District Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and received the Kawaler Family Foundation Award. Later that year, she performed at Houston Grand Opera as a finalist in the Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers. Karen Jesse holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music in Opera Performance from the Curtis Institute of Music.
KAREN JESSE
soprano
