Biography

Hailed for her “best all-around performance” in Handel’s Ariodante for her portrayal of Dalinda (Opera News) and described as a “great Handel singer” (Philadelphia Inquirer) and "delicious lyric coloratura," (CentralJersey.com) soprano Marcy Richardson is a true stage animal with a passion for baroque, sophisticated musical theater, and contemporary music.

Upcoming performances include Ani King George in Gordon Beeferman and Charlotte Jackson's "The Enchanted Organ," a burlesque opera that satirizes the porn industry, and Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass at Community Presbyterian Church in Mountainside, New Jersey. This past year, she made her Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully and Avery Fisher Hall as the soprano soloist in the Faure Requiem and Mozart Vesparae solennes de Confessore with MidAmerica Productions, was featured in "NYFOS Next: Joseph Thalken and Friends" with the New York Festival of Song, sang Diana in La Calisto with Vertical Player Repertory, the Bach Magnificat as part of New York City's Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity, Scarlatti's Arianna with Musica Nuova, Holiday Pops with the Princeton Symphony, "From Paris to Berlin to New York" (Gala Concert) with Toledo Opera, A Poulenc Cabaret with OperaMission, Five Eliot Landscapes (Thomas Adés) and Bonsai Journal (Mohammed Fairouz) with the Mimesis Ensemble, and premiered John Eaton’s microtonal song cycle, The Greeks: Ancient to Modern, in the American Composer’s Alliance Summer Festival at Symphony Space in New York. Inspired by her work in Weill’s Berlin to Broadway with Opera Columbus, Ms. Richardson developed a special interest in this repertoire and starred in Kurt Weill Uncovered: A Cabaret Chronology with Operamission at the Gershwin Hotel. She also produced and recorded a program of Handel's seconda donna opera arias with early music instruments, also in collaboration with Operamission.

Originally from Grosse Pointe, MI and a graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Ms. Richardson’s other stage credits include Dalinda in Handel's Ariodante with the Princeton Festival,  Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Mrs. Hayes in Susannah with Orlando Opera, Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro and Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore with Baltimore Opera, Emmaline in Purcell’s King Arthur with the Bloomington Early Music Festival, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte with Opera Vivente, The Watchman/Jazz Singer in Antigone with Aguavá New Music Ensemble, Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Central City Opera (cover performance), Fiorilla in Il Turco in Italia, Lucy in The Telephone, and Poussette in Manon at Indiana University. In concert, she has performed as a soloist in the American premiere of Sven-David Sandström's High Mass with VocalEssence under Philip Brunelle, Webern's Op. 18 for soprano, clarinet, and guitar with the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, where she was a member of the Contemporary Music Festival Academy under Pierre Boulez, Handel's Messiah and George Benjamin's A Mind of Winter with the Orlando Philharmonic, Exsultate, Jubilate with Lyrique-en-Mer in Belle-Isle, France, Carmina Burana with the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, Handel's Solomon with the Lafayette Bach Chorale Singers, Handel's Israel in Egypt with the Carmel Bach Festival, the Brahms Liebeslieder Walzer and the Pergolesi Stabat Mater at the Palm Beach Atlantic Unitversity Chapel, Poulenc's La Courte Paille with the Brevard Music Festival, the Poulenc Gloria with Little Orchestra Society (cover), Die Schöpfung and Carl Heinrich Graun's Der Tod Jesu at Indiana University, and has won various awards and grants from the Kurt Weill Foundation, Gerda Lissner Foundation, Heinz Rehfuss Singing Actor Awards, Metropolitan Opera National Council, Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation, Heida Hermanns International Voice Competition, and Opera Birmingham’s Cassell Stewart Vocal Competition.

No stranger to musical theater, Ms. Richardson got her start in dance and theater and has also appeared as Rosie in Cabaret, Lili Vanessi in Kiss Me Kate, Cinderella in Into the Woods, Dream Laurey in Oklahoma!, tribe member in Hair, Leonide in Triumph of Love, principal in the Cole Porter Review Let’s Fall in Love, Angel City 4 in City of Angels, and featured dancer/ensemble in On the Town, Will Rogers Follies, and Once on this Island, to name a few.