Emily Magee

Soprano Emily Magee, a native of New York City, studied with Margaret Harshaw at Indiana University and launched her career at Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Center for American Artists. In 1994 she replaced an indisposed colleague to sing Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte at Chicago Lyric Opera; it was with this role that she made her European debut in 1996 at the Opéra National de Paris. Soon after she created a sensation as Elsa in Lohengrin at the Berlin Staatsoper and was immediately invited to undertake the role of Eva in Die Meistersinger at the Bayreuth Festival in 1997. Since then Magee has appeared at such venues as La Scala in Milan, the Bavarian Staatsoper, the Royal Opera House in London, Zurich Opera, and the Vienna Staatsoper. In 2008 she made her Salzburg Festival debut as the Foreign Princess in Dvorák’s Rusalka, and in 2011 she was engaged by the Salzburg Easter Festival to perform the title role in Strauss’s Salome. Magee’s repertoire encompasses youthful dramatic roles of both the German and the Italian repertoire, with a focus on the works of Puccini, Mozart, Wagner, and Strauss; in addition she performs in several less frequently heard operas such as Korngold’s Die tote Stadt (Marietta) and Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler (Ursula). In the summer of 2012 Magee appeared at the Salzburg Festival in the original version of Strauss’s Ariadne, and she took part in a new production of Elektra in Chicago last fall as Chrysothemis; in May 2013 she will sing Countess Madeleine in Strauss’s Capriccio in Lyon. The soprano regularly collaborates with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Antonio Pappano, and Simon Rattle.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 31 August 1998 in the third act of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger as part of a guest performance by the Bayreuth Festival under Daniel Barenboim;

February 2013