Welcome
MONIQUE McDONALD, soprano, is hailed for her powerful and moving performances. Most recently she enjoyed great success as Tosca with Ruggiero Raimondi as Scarpia and Elisabetta in Don Carlo with Opera Royal de Wallonie, Belgium; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth in a 15 city tour of Spain; and her debut with Los Angeles Opera as Serena in Porgy & Bess. Other recent engagements include the title role in Tosca with Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Italy, together with a tour of Spain including Toledo, Zaragoza, and Burgos theaters; Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos for her Seattle Opera debut; Leonore in Il Trovatore for Teatre de Mostoles in Madrid, Spain; Aida at the Luglio Musicale Festival in Sicily; and Serena in Porgy & Bess at Detroit Opera.
In previous seasons, Ms McDonald has appeared as Micaela in Carmen, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Iphigenie in Iphigenie en Tauride with New York City Opera; La Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro with Tulsa Opera; Tatyana in Eugene Onegin with Opera Delaware; Aida and Iris for the Berkshire Opera Festival. Serena in Porgy & Bess in Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and New York City Opera; Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte and Armide in Gluck’s Armide with the Juilliard Opera Center; and Andrea Chenier (Maddalena di Coigny) and Manon Lescaut, (Manon), at Palm Beach Opera under the guidance of Maestro Anton Guadagno.
Upcoming engagements include Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos in Belgium; Amelia in Ballo in Maschera in Venice; and a recital with the Marilyn Horne Foundation.
In concert and oratorio, Ms. McDonald has appeared as soloist in the Verdi Requiem with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra; the Dvorak Requiem with the Berkshire Choral Festival; the Mozart Requiem with the Spoleto Festival USA; Mozart’s C minor Mass with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Hogwood at the Kennedy Center; Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate with the Orchestra Albert Schweitzer in Strasbourg, France; the Brahm’s Requiem under the baton of Lorenzo Muti; Dvorak’s Stabat Mater with the Raleigh Oratorio Society; and both Poulenc’s Gloria and Verdi’s Requiem with the North Carolina Symphony. In addition, she has given recitals for the George London Foundation and the Caramoor Music Festival and filled in at a moments notice for an indisposed Ms. Barbara Hendricks in The New York Pops 2001 Christmas Concert at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Skitch Henderson.
Ms. McDonald can be heard in the role of Serena in DECCA's new Grammy-nominated recording of Porgy & Bess and as the soprano soloist in the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen, recorded live at the Library of Congress in Washington DC with the New York Festival of Song and available from New World Records.
Ms. McDonald is a winner of the Sullivan Foundation Competition; was the recipient of the first Leonie Rysanek Award in the 1998 George London Competition; after making her New York City debut at Town Hall, she was First Prize winner of the 1997 Palm Beach Opera Competition; and was First Prize winner in the 1996 Eleanor McCollum Competition at Houston Grand Opera.
