OPERA BIO

Emily Harmon, New Hampshire-born mezzo soprano, is often praised for her “velvety mezzo-soprano voice” (Pittsburgh in the Round). Throughout the 2023-2024 season, Ms. Harmon served as a Herndon Foundation Emerging Artist with Virginia Opera, where she garnered wildly enthusiastic response for her outstanding performances as Berta (Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and also successfully covered the role of Suzuki (Madama Butterfly) for the company. This summer 2024, Ms. Harmon is invited back to the Glimmerglass Festival as a Young Artist to cover the role of Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance and also perform roles in Elizabeth Cree. She previously enjoyed success there last summer 2023, as a Young Artist covering both the Baroness and Vanderdendur in Candide. Upcoming this fall 2024, Ms. Harmon is excited to make her company debut with Winter Opera Saint Louis as Buttercup (principal artist) in HMS Pinafore.

Of further note, Ms. Harmon recently made her company debut with Central City Opera as a Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Apprentice Artist, where she covered and performed the role of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She also won Third Place in the 10th Annual Mildred Miller International Voice Competition and was a semifinalist in both the 2022 Annapolis Opera Vocal Competition and the 2021 James Toland Vocal Arts Competition.

​On the concert stage, Emily Harmon made her Boston Symphony Hall solo debut as the alto soloist in an excerpt of Purcell’s Come, Ye Sons of Art, Z.323 with the Handel+Haydn Society’s Collaborative Youth Concerts. She has also performed the mezzo/alto solos in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Handel’s Messiah and Utrecht Jubilate Deo, Mozart’s Requiem, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater.

A long-term New Englander, Ms. Harmon was a roster artist with Boston Opera Collaborative and performed roles with the company including Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro), the Marquise de Merteuil (The Dangerous Liaisons), and Aunt (Stefan Weisman’s The Scarlet Ibis). She performed the Old Lady in Candide and Elder Constance in Matthew Aucoin’s Second Nature with Opera del West. She further sang Schaunard in MassOpera’s production of La femme Bohème, an all-female version of Puccini’s La Bohème. Prior to its cancellation due to the pandemic, Ms. Harmon was prepared to flex her musical theatre muscles as Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd) with Lowell House Opera.

Emily Harmon was a young artist at Pittsburgh Festival Opera for two summers, where she performed the role of Amastre (Xerxes) and covered Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd). Ms. Harmon made her European debut in 2012 singing both Cherubino and Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Tuscia Operafestival in Viterbo, Italy.

A graduate of Boston University’s voice programs, Emily Harmon performed the roles of Dido (Dido and Aeneas), Dorothée (Cendrillon), Ruth (Dark Sisters), Mother Jeanne (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Estelle Ogelthorpe (Later the Same Evening), Vocal Quintet (Angels in America), Chorus 2 (Fables), and covered Annio (La Clemenza di Tito). Ms. Harmon received both her M.M. and B.M. (magna cum laude) in Voice Performance from Boston University. She is also the proud mom of a rescue dog named Captain, who is a very good boy when allowed to visit the rehearsal room!

VIDEO

Awake, Saturnia…Hence, Iris, Hence Away (Juno) / Semele (G.F. Handel)

O mio Fernando / La Favorita (Donizetti)

En vain, pour eviter (Carmen) / Carmen (Bizet)

I am Easily Assimilated (Old Lady) / Candide (Bernstein)

O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion / Messiah (G.F. Handel)

O ma lyre immortelle / Sapho (Gounod)

He Vas My Boyfriend (Frau Blucher) / Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan)

RESUME

CAREER INFLUENCES

Conductors:  Tian Hui Ng, Lidiya Yankovskaya

Directors:  Dan Rigazzi, Greg Smucker

Voice Teachers:  Rebecca Folsom (current), Penelope Bitzas

Coaches:  Rachelle Jonck, Matthew Larson

SPECIAL SKILLS

Dance:  Extensive training in ballet, tap, jazz, and modern dance; basic ballroom and period movement with Melinda Sullivan

Languages:  4 years of German and Latin; 2 years of French and Italian

Combat:  Stage combat with Erick Wolfe; 3 years of fencing (foil and sabre); Level 2 practitioner of Krav Maga

Instruments:  Proficiency in piano, flute, clarinet, and saxophone