American soprano Melissa Harvey’s impressive stylistic versatility can be heard in operatic and concert repertoire spanning over four centuries. Ms. Harvey begins her 2023-2024 season with a co-production of Nadia Boulanger’s only opera La Ville Morte (1909) in the role of Hébé with Greek National Opera in Athens, Greece and Catapult Opera in New York City (US Premiere). The season also holds a US concert as the soprano soloist with Catacoustic Consort, performing rarely heard 17th century French Baroque pardessus duets.

Ms. Harvey’s 2019-2020 was filled with several performances of music new and old, including the role of Siren 1 in The Night Falls with American Opera Project, Drusilla and Amore in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea with Florentine Opera and Drusilla with Cincinnati Opera. She was also the featured soloist in the Salisbury Symphony’s Winter Holiday is in the Aire concert and notably debuted the role of Shatzi in the world premiere of The Flood (Korine Fujiwara) with Opera Columbus.  Other 20th and 21st century works performed throughout her career include Alice in Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland (NYCO) and Lucinda (cover) with Gotham Chamber Opera and Opera Philadelphia for the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters.

Ms. Harvey’s prodigious activity in early music has made her invaluable to concert organizations such as Catacoustic Consort, Salisbury Symphony, The Bach Society, Collegium Cincinnati, Bourbon Baroque, Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble, and the Findlay Orchestra.  With these organizations, she has performed such works as Bach’s Cantatas BWV 04, 71, 106, 196, Magnificat, Weihnachtsoratorium, and Johannespassion; Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, Handel’s Messiah and Dixit Dominus, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Mozart’s Great Mass in c minor, and Poulenc’s Gloria. Ms. Harvey also performed two works of Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Le reniement de St. Pierre and the world premiere of a never-before-performed opera from 1685, La fête du Ruel, as well as recorded two albums with Catacoustic Consort.

Ms. Harvey received her BM and MM in Voice from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).  At CCM, her operatic repertoire included Sister Constance (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Eurydice (Orpheus in the Underworld), Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia), Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), and Amore (L’incoronazione di Poppea). Ms. Harvey’s concert repertoire included Bach’s Cantatas BWV 78 & 79, Fauré Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai and Mass in Time of War, and Steve Reich’s Tehillim.  Among the scholarships and awards she has received are the Dieterle Vocal Scholarship, the Baur/Powell Scholarship, the Mercer Scholarship for language study (Freiburg, Germany), and a 2009 Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional Auditions.