Joyce Didonato
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 risen to the top of the industry as a performer, a producer, and a fierce advocate for the arts. With a repertoire spanning over four centuries and a varied and highly acclaimed discography, as well as her many industry-leading projects, DiDonato’s artistry has defined what it is to be a singer in the 21st century.
Recent highlights include Handel’s Theodora for the Teatro Real in Madrid and a highly acclaimed European recital tour with performances at Teatro alla Scala, Staatsoper Berlin, Athens Megaron, and Palau de la Musica de Valencia. DiDonato has continued her celebrated musical partnership with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and made debut appearances with the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In December 2024, DiDonato toured the United States with Dallas-based a cappella group Kings Return with a festive program entitled Kings Re-Joyce. An intensive spring residency at the Konzerthaus Dortmund featured the world premiere of Another Eve, a song cycle by Rachel Portman, as well as her concert debut in Handel’s Jephtha alongside II Pomo d’Oro.
DiDonato’s distinctively varied 2025–26 season commenced with season-opening concerts for both the Minnesota Orchestra and Montreal’s Orchestre Metropolitain, as well as re-opening Powell Hall with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in a Kevin Puts’ world premiere, House of Tomorrow. Also this season, she returned to Musikkollegium Winterthur for a performance of Rachel Portman’s Another Eve, and collaborated with Radio France for Mahler’s Ruckert-Lieder in Paris and Dijon. DiDonato reunites with pianist Craig Terry for recitals at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and Suntory Hall Tokyo. She embarked on her first major tour of Australasia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tasmania Symphony Orchestra, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. In the United States, she made her Lincoln Center Theater stage debut as The Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and makes her much-anticipated role debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence. Concert appearances include Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with Nézet-Séguin and the Berlin Philharmoniker. DiDonato maintains her annual in-demand master class series at Carnegie Hall and tours her album SongPlay throughout Asia. She also joins the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for her second European tour with Nézet-Séguin and this orchestra following a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 at Carnegie Hall.
As DiDonato’s latest global touring project, EDEN, completed a ground-breaking three years with tours in Asia, South America, the United States, and Europe, reaching more than 15 million people with performances in 50 cities, the anticipation is only building for her next album release and touring project. This evening’s newly commissioned song cycle by Kevin Puts for DiDonato and Time for Three, featuring the poetry of Emily Dickinson, had its world premiere at Bregenzer Festspiele in August 2025; subsequent performances across the US including Kansas City and Chicago, as well as at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
On the operatic stage, DiDonato ’s recent roles include Virginia Woolf (The Hours), Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking), Agrippina, Cendrillon, Sesto (La Clemenza di Tito), Adalgisa (Norma) all for the Metropolitan Opera. Other milestones include Didon (Les Troyens) at the Wiener Staatsoper; Agrippina for the Royal Opera House and in concert with II Pomo d’Oro under Maxim Emelyanchev; Semiramide at the Bavarian State Opera and Royal Opera House, and Charlotte in Werther at the Royal Opera House.
Much in demand on the concert and recital circuit, DiDonato has held residencies at Carnegie Hall and 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 Revolutionnaire 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.
DiDonato’s expansive discography includes the highly celebrated Les Troyens (winning Gramophone’s coveted Recording of the Year award) and Handel’s Agrippina (Gramophone’s Opera Recording of the Year). Her other albums include her singular EDEN spanning four centuries of music, the acclaimed Winterreise with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Grammy Award-winning Songplay, In War & Peace, the 2017 Best Recital Gramophone Award, Stella di Napoli, Grammy Award-winning Diva Diva, and Drama Queens. Other honors include the Gramophone Artist and Recital of the Year awards, as well as being selected an inaugural inductee into the Gramophone Hall of Fame. In September 2024, DiDonato was honored to receive the 14th Concertgebouw Prize for her exceptional contribution to the artistic profile of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. She recently received one of France’s highest honors, becoming an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.