Program Books/JOYCE DIDONATO
Joyce DiDonato

JOYCE DIDONATO

mezzo-soprano and executive producer

“The staggering, joyful artistry of Joyce DiDonato reminds us that in any generation there are a few giants. Joyce is not only a great, brave and inspiring artist—one of the finest singers of our time—but she is also a transformative presence in the arts. Those who know her repertoire are in awe of her gifts, and those who know nothing of it are instantly engaged. Joyce sings and the world is suddenly brighter. She compels us to listen actively, to hear things anew.”

Jake Heggie, Gramophone

Multi-Grammy Award winner and 2018 Olivier Award winner for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, Kansas-born Joyce DiDonato entrances audiences across the globe, and has been proclaimed “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation” by The New Yorker. With a voice “nothing less than 24-carat gold,” according to the Times, DiDonato has soared to the top of the industry both as a performer and a fierce advocate for the arts, gaining international prominence in operas by Handel and Mozart, as well as through her varied and highly acclaimed discography. She is also widely celebrated for the bel canto roles of Rossini and Donizetti.

DiDonato’s 2022–23 season includes further touring of her newly released album EDEN around Europe and the USA with
Il Pomo d’Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev and Zefira Valova; performances as Virginia Woolf in the Met’s world-premiere production of Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Kevin Puts’ The Hours, and as Patricia Westerford in Tod Machover’s Overstory Overture at Alice Tully Hall in New York and Seoul Arts Center in South Korea; and a residency at Musikkollegium Winterthur.

Recent highlights have included European tours of her Baroque-inspired program My Favorite Things with Il Pomo d’Oro, in cities including Edinburgh, Salz­burg, Bucharest, Barcelona, Antwerp, and Lisbon, as well as her Winterreise and In My Solitude recital programs with pianist and long-time collaborator Craig Terry. DiDonato also returned to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Irene in Handel’s Theodora alongside Julia Bullock and Jakub Józef Orliński.

In opera, her recent roles include Agrippina at the Metropolitan Opera and in a new production at the Royal Opera House; Didon/Les Troyens at the Vienna State Opera; Sesto, Cendrillon and Adalgisa/Norma at the Metropolitan Opera, Agrippina in concert with Il Pomo d’Oro under Maxim Emelyanychev; Sister Helen/Dead Man Walking at the Teatro Real Madrid and London’s Barbican Centre; Semiramide at the Bavarian State Opera and Royal Opera House; and Charlotte/Werther at the Royal Opera.

Much in demand on the concert and recital circuit, DiDonato has held residencies at Carnegie Hall and at London’s Barbican Centre; toured extensively in the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia; and appeared as guest soloist at the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms. Other concert highlights include the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle, Orchestre Révolu­tionnaire et Romantique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and the Accademia Santa Cecilia Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra USA under Sir Antonio Pappano.

An exclusive recording artist with Warner Classics/Erato, DiDonato’s expansive discography includes Berlioz’s Les Troyens, which in 2018 won the Recording (Complete Opera) category at the International Opera Awards, the Opera Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Gramophone’s Recording of the Year; and Handel’s Agrippina, which won the Gramophone Opera Recording and Limelight Opera Recording of the Year awards in 2020. Her other albums include a celebrated Winterreise with Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Songplay; In War & Peace, which won the 2017 Best Recital Gramophone Award; Stella di Napoli; her Grammy Award-winning Diva Divo; and Drama Queens. Other honors include the Gramophone Artist of the Year and Recital of the Year awards, and an induction into the Gramophone Hall of Fame.