Ms. Bird opened the 2007-2008 season at the Metropolitan Opera, performing Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro, and she will close her season there singing the Crowned Child in Macbeth. She made her debut with the company in the 2006-2007 season, singing two roles in a new production of Il Trittico - the Young Lover in Il Tabarro and Novice in Suor Angelica. Other roles this season include Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with Opera Grand Rapids (“enchanting”) and Rosina in Dayton Opera’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. About that performance, The Dayton City Paper wrote
“Her Rosina goes well beyond the usual “pert” and heads right for spunky and vivacious. She is as delightful to watch as to hear, which is saying quite a bit. ...her voice sounds beautiful from well above the staff to considerably below, with rather lush low and middle registers and a shimmering top.”
The summer of 2008 will take her to Wolf Trap Opera for her second summer as a Filene Young Artist; while there she will perform Cunegonde in Candide with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stephen Lord and starring Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander as Pangloss.
Concert appearances this season include her Carnegie Hall debut in Evan Chamber’s oratorio The Old Burying Ground, a work she recorded and toured with the University of Michigan Orchestra under the direction of Kenneth Kiesler. She will appear in “An Evening of Musical Shakespeare” with the Atlanta Symphony, conducted by Nicholas McGegan, and in recital collaborations with Jocelyn Dueck, Steve Blier, Kimball Gallagher, and Djordje Nesic. Her on-going recital project with Ms. Dueck included a world premiere last season (Hillula by Judd Greenstein); Steve Smith from Time Out New York wrote of the performance: "Bird proved herself a singer capable of ... getting under the skin of a piece, touching its inner passions and revealing them to a listener."
Currently scheduled for the 2008-2009 season are appearances with Arizona Opera (Yum-Yum, The Mikado), Nashville Opera (Zerlina, Don Giovanni), Syracuse Opera (Beth, Little Women), and Opera Carolina (Susanna, Le Nozze di Figaro). Ms. Bird also looks forward to a return to her alma mater, the University of Georgia, as part of the UGA Performing Arts Center Ramsey Concert Hall series in 2009.
Past performance highlights include Celia in John Musto’s comedic masterpiece Volpone at Wolf Trap Opera, Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Magnificat with Portland Baroque Orchestra, the stepdaughter Noémie in Laurent Pelly’s highly-acclaimed production of Cendrillon at Santa Fe Opera, and Bubikopf in Der Kaiser von Atlantis with Seattle’s Black Box Opera Theater. She has been seen in staged and concert versions of Osvaldo Golijov’s opera Ainadamar and can be heard as “The Voice of the Fountain” on the Grammy-award-winning recording. In 2006 she toured with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to perform Golijov’s La Pasion de segun San Marcos (“luminous” -The New York Times).
Anne-Carolyn Bird is a recipient of the Agnes M. Canning Memorial Award from the Santa Fe Opera and career grants from the Catherine Filene Shouse Education Fund and the Julian Autrey Song Foundation. She has been a finalist in the Sun Valley Opera Competition (1st Prize, 2004), Eugene Opera Belle Voci Competition (3rd Prize, 2005), Oratorio Society of New York Competition (Finalist, 2007), and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (District Winner, 2003). Twice a Young Artist with the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers and twice a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, she holds degrees from New England Conservatory (MMus) and the University of Georgia (BMus). Ms. Bird keeps a blog chronicling her life as a singer; it is read daily by music writers, administrators, opera fans, and singers worldwide at theconcert.blogspot.com.
For more on this artist, please visit: Anne-CarolynBird.com
