Deborah Selig, Soprano

Biography

Soprano Deborah Selig has earned critical acclaim for her rich shimmering voice, her excellent artistic instincts, and her fine execution of the lyric soprano repertoire.  A native of Washington, DC, Ms. Selig has performed leading operatic roles with a number of US companies including Pittsburgh Opera, Dayton Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Opera Roanoke, Central City Opera, Mobile Opera, Kentucky Opera, and Connecticut Lyric Opera.  In concert, she has soloed with Albany Symphony, Asheville Symphony, the Cincinnati Baroque, Cincinnati Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Erie Philharmonic, Greater Bridgeport Symphony, Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, Kentucky Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra.  She was one of only five American singers chosen to compete in the distinguished international Wigmore Hall 2011 song competition and has recently been added to the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series at the Chicago Cultural Center for the 2012 season.

Upcoming engagements this season include a debut with Opera Boston as Bella in Michael Tippet’s A Midsummer Marriage and a return to Central City Opera where she will perform Musetta in La Boheme.  In addition, Ms. Selig debuts with Rhode Island Philharmonic, Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra, and Boston Civic Symphony and returns to Longfellow Orchestra for Elgar’s Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf, Nashoba Valley Chorale for Bach’s Cantata BWV 21, and Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus for Schubert’s Mass in A-Flat Major. 

Ms. Selig’s successes on the operatic stage in recent seasons include Pamina in The Magic Flute, Rose in Street Scene, Mary Warren in The Crucible, and Marion in The Music Man, all with Chautauqua Opera; Curley’s Wife in Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men with Kentucky Opera; Valencienne in The Merry Widow with Mobile Opera; Adele in Die Fledermaus and Amy in Little Women with Dayton Opera; Nannetta in Falstaff with Opera Roanoke; Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with Connecticut Lyric Opera, and Zerlina in Don Giovanni with Central City Opera.  Ms. Selig toured the role of Tessa in Trinity, a new John Kennedy opera, with Santa Fe Opera and returned to SFO to cover both Musetta in La Boheme and Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore. 

During the 2007-9 seasons as a Resident Artist with the Pittsburgh Opera, Ms. Selig performed Norina in Don Pasquale, Elvira in L’Italiana in Algieri, Tina in Jonathan Dove’s Flight, a student matinee of Musetta, Giannetta in L’Elisir d’Amore,  and the High Priestess in Aida.  In addition, she covered Rosasharn in Grapes of Wrath, Giulietta in I Capuleti ed I Montecchi and Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore.  Ms. Selig also sang the soprano solo in a staged performance of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice for Soprano, Piano and Clarinet -- a role she later reprised for a debut with the Five Boroughs Music Festival in New York City in 2010. 

A striking and versatile artist on the concert stage, recent performances include Fauré’s Requiem, Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation and Lord Nelson Mass, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Poulenc’s Gloria and Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem - all with various choruses and orchestras in the US. 

Recital projects in the 2010-2011 seasons included song recitals with baritone Jesse Blumberg and pianist Cameron Stowe at the Goethe Institut in Boston, the Ames Town & Gown Chamber Music Association, and the Cosmos Club Music Series in Washington, DC, a return to Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown Concert House for a recital of Wolf and Schumann songs with Martin Katz, and a debut with the University of Wyoming Cultural Programs Series for a song recital and performance of Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder with orchestra.  Last season also included a debut with the Longfellow Chorus and Orchestra for Elsie in Arthur Sullivan’s rarely performed cantata The Golden Legend and performances of the soprano solos in several Bach cantatas for a debut with the distinguished Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. 

Ms. Selig earned an Artist Diploma and Master of Music from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and a summa cum laude BM/BA in Voice and English from The University of Michigan. She spent two seasons each as an Apprentice artist with Chautauqua Opera, Santa Fe Opera and Pittsburgh Opera; was a fellow at both the Ravinia Festival Steans Institute for Singers and Tanglewood Music Center; and studied at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and Istituto il David in Florence.  Ms. Selig has received awards and grants from the Santa Fe Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Connecticut Opera Guild, Southern Ohio district of the Metropolitan Opera Competition, Shoshana Foundation, National Opera Association, and the Anna Sosenko Trust.

“Selig was Rose -- her considerable beauty finely detailed, her voice richly capable of any emotional nuance, her character delineated by each gesture she made, her desperation almost palpable..."
Chautauquan Daily

“…the star throughout...her sense of line and nuance were matched only by the sheer beauty of her tone and power of projection.”    New London Day

“Deborah Selig was absolutely stunning as the peasant bride...”  Cincinnati Enquirer
(from deborahselig.com)