soprano

Soprano Deborah Selig’s voice has been described by the press as “radiant,” “beautifully rich,” “capable of any emotional nuance,” and “impressively nimble.” During recent seasons, Ms. Selig has appeared as Pamina in The Magic Flute with Boston Lyric Opera; Musetta in La Bohème and Zerlina in Don Giovanni with Central City Opera; 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 and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Kentucky Opera; and Bella in Tippett’s A Midsummer Marriage with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.

A striking and versatile artist on the concert stage, Ms. Selig has sung with orchestras and choruses across the United States. Some recent highlights include Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with Asheville Symphony, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle with both Brown University and Harvard-Radcliffe Choruses, Brahmn’s Requiem with Dayton Philharmonic, Bach's Cantatas nos. 37, 92, and 97 with Handel and Haydn Society, Orff’s Carmina Burana with Greater Bridgeport Symphony and Fairbanks Symphony (upcoming), Haydn’s Creation with Harvard University Choirs, Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 with Kentucky Symphony, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Masterworks Chorale, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Nashoba Valley Chorale, and Handel’s Messiah with Rhode Island Philharmonic.

Recordings include Marcia Kraus’s Three Fairy Tales for Soprano, Oboe, and Piano with Centaur Records and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and BMOP/sound, both to be released in 2015.

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 the Tanglewood Music Center, and studied at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and Istituto il David in Florence. www.deborahselig.com

Performances

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | November 18, 2016
Concert Details
Blizzard Voices
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | March 5, 2015
Concert Details
Four Saints in Three Acts
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | November 16, 2013
Concert Details
The Midsummer Marriage
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | November 10, 2012
Concert Details

News and Press

[Concert Review] Moravec’s stunning “Blizzard Voices” receives powerful premiere from BMOP

Disastrous winters live long in historical memory. For example, there is the blizzard that hit the Great Plains in January of 1888, which caught many who lived in the Midwestern territories unawares. Known as the Children’s Blizzard, the storm trapped students and teachers in their one-room schoolhouses where they remained for days. Many who ventured out into the storm succumbed to frostbite. Others froze to death. In conservative estimates, several hundred people died.

Boston Classical Review Full review
[Concert Review] Michael Tippett's Midsummer madness

The first American production of any of Michael Tippett's five operas was Sarah Caldwell's The Ice Break for the Opera Company of Boston in 1979. In 1991, BU students did The Knot Garden. This year, Opera Boston scheduled the first Boston production of The Midsummer Marriage, Tippett's first opera (completed in 1952, after six years of work). But Opera Boston folded.

The Boston Phoenix Full review
[Concert Review] A Phoenix Rises from the Ashes of Opera Boston

Boston opera buffs were dealt a hard blow last December when Opera Boston, a company known for innovative productions of less familiar repertory, announced it was shutting down amid a financial and managerial crisis. But the company’s ambitious plans were not entirely sent to the scrap heap of operatic history: Sir Michael Tippett’s opera, The Midsummer Marriage – planned as the centerpiece of the company’s 2012 season – was reconceived as a concert production Saturday at Jordan Hall by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP).

WQXR Full review
[Concert Review] BMOP proceeds with Tippett's 'Midsummer Marriage'

Before a note was played, Saturday night’s Boston Modern Orchestra Project performance of Michael Tippett’s first mature opera, “The Midsummer Marriage,” generated more good will and broader public curiosity than the average season-opener. That’s because the now-defunct Opera Boston had this rarely spotted Tippett opera on its agenda long before the company abruptly folded last December.

The Boston Globe Full review
[Concert Review] BMOP gives worthy advocacy to Tippett's unwieldy "Midsummer Marriage'

One door closes, another opens. With the demise of the ambitious company Opera Boston last year, director Gil Rose lost a chance to explore some of the gems in the outermost reaches of the stage repertory.

Fear not. Rose simply brought one such rarity, Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage—slated last season for Opera Boston but left unperformed—to his other adventurous ensemble, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. BMOP performed a semi-staged version of the mid-20th century opera Saturday evening at Jordan Hall.

Boston Classical Review Full review