Meagan Miller
Early life
{{BLP sources section|date=September 2014}}
Miller was born in Wilmington, Delaware and grew up in West Chester, Ohio and Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
She attended high school at Archmere Academy and was selected for the 1991 Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts.
Miller then studied at Washington and Lee University for two years, where she performed her first operatic role, the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and also gave her first solo recital.
She transferred to the Juilliard School in New York City, where she received her bachelor's degree, then continued her studies with the Juilliard Opera Center.{{cite journal|url=https://playbill.com/article/a-chat-with-soprano-meagan-miller|author=Imperato, Albert|date=27 May 2011|title=A Chat With Soprano Meagan Miller|journal=Playbill}}
Miller's major teachers during her education were Mary Ellen Schauber, Dan Pressley, Josepha Gayer, and Cynthia Hoffmann, who she studied with at The Juilliard School.
Career
As a winner of the Joy In Singing Award,{{cite web|title=Joy In Singing: History|url=http://www.joyinsinging.org/History.html|accessdate=22 September 2012}} Miller made her New York City recital debut in the autumn of 1998. The program included songs by Barber, Montsalvatge, Debussy, Griffes and Wolf, and was reviewed in The New York Times by Paul Griffiths.{{cite news|last=Griffiths|first=Paul|title=A Statement of Taste in a Singer's Debut|work=The New York Times |date=29 October 1998 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/29/arts/in-performance-classical-music-591459.html|accessdate=22 September 2012}}
She was also one of five winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1999, where she performed "{{Lang|de|Martern aller Arten}}" from Die Entführung aus dem Serail and "Ain't it a Pretty Night?" from Carlisle Floyd's Susannah with the orchestra conducted by Edoardo Muller, in a performance that The New York Times described as proving "her agility, thrust and command of intonation', with a voice that is "strong and brilliant".Griffiths, Paul. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E1D8173BF936A25757C0A96F958260 Music Review, "Contest, Yes, but a Contest Among Equals"], The New York Times, April 15, 1999.
She subsequently appeared with the Opera Orchestra of New York, New York City Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, the Minnesota Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, Opéra de Montréal, Orlando Opera, Kentucky Opera, Syracuse Opera, Eugene Opera, San Francisco Opera's Merola Program, and Wolf Trap Opera in a variety of leading soprano roles including Mozart's Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Donna Anna and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Countess Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro), Violetta (La traviata), Desdemona (Otello), Musetta (La bohème), Marguerite (Faust), Rosalinda (Die Fledermaus), Euridice (Orfeo ed Euridice), Laurie (The Tender Land), and the title role in Susannah.
Miller completed several residencies with the Marilyn Horne Foundation, the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival and the Wolf Trap Foundation, which combined performing and outreach,Jett. Cathy (3 May 2002). [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=20020503&id=8_AyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pggGAAAAIBAJ&pg=6768,744193 "Soprano wows city students"]. The Free Lance-Star. Retrieved 29 August 2012 and in 2008 won both the George London/Kirsten Flagstad Award sponsored by The New York Community Trust and the George London Foundation Vienna Prize.{{cite web|title=George London Award Winners 1971–2014|url=http://georgelondon.org/?page_id=57#winners|accessdate=28 September 2012}}
In June 2009, Miller made her European operatic debut as Ariadne in the Vienna Volksoper's new production of Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. Her Vienna debut led to further performances at important European opera houses, such as the State Operas of Vienna, Munich and Hamburg, of roles in the late-Romantic German repertoire, primarily Wagner and Strauss, as well as the heavier Puccini roles such as Minnie in La fanciulla del West.[http://operabase.com/a/Meagan_Miller/12112 Meagan Miller], schedule at Operabase
In September 2013, Miller sang Marietta/Marie in a concert performance of Korngold's Die tote Stadt in Boston,[https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/09/06/city-invisible-korngold-tote-stadt-one-century-later/7Iu4U8AGKeNY9k8JkOR2NN/story.html Korngold's Tote Stadt, one century later] by Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, September 6, 2014 a role she then sang on stage at the New National Theatre Tokyo in March 2014 and at the Hamburg State Opera under Simone Young in 2015.[http://www.hamburgische-staatsoper.de/de/2_spielplan/index.php?tmpl=besetzung&event=123222&t=Kalender Die tote Stadt], performance details, Hamburg State Opera Miller made her Metropolitan Opera debut as the {{Lang|de|Kaiserin}} in Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten in November 2013 with Vladimir Jurowski conducting.[http://www.metopera.org/PageFiles/41061/Nov%2016%20Frau.pdf Die Frau ohne Schatten], performance details, Metropolitan Opera
Miller has appeared in many art song recitals and frequently includes music by contemporary composers. She has premiered several works written specifically for her voice, including Libby Larsen's Try Me, Good King: Last Words of the Wives of Henry VIII{{cite web|last=Larsen|first=Libby|title=Libby Larsen – Voice|url=http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=241&resourceID=1369|publisher=libbylarsen.com|accessdate=28 September 2012}} and Robert Beaser's Four Dickinson Songs.{{cite news|last=Kozinn|first=Allan|authorlink=Allan Kozinn|title=Music in Review; Meagan Miller|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/24/movies/music-in-review-meagan-miller.html|work=The New York Times|date=24 May 2002 |accessdate=28 September 2012}}{{cite news|last=Kozinn|first=Allan|authorlink=Allan Kozinn|title=Playing and Singing with Rome as a Catalyst|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/arts/music-review-playing-and-singing-with-rome-as-catalyst.html?gwh=D520748E02D991CB2DE4A9B67D515C87|work=The New York Times|date=20 November 2002 |accessdate=28 September 2012}}{{cite web|last=Beaser|first=Robert|title=Program Notes|url=http://music.arizona.edu/programs/ProgramBartokLigetiBeaser2011.pdf}}
She has also premiered numerous other works, including pieces by Thomas Cipullo, Christopher Berg, and Russell Platt. At her 2002 recital at Merkin Concert Hall, she performed a group of Richard Strauss songs that opened with "Das Rosenband" (Op. 36, No. 1), and also included "Meinem Kinde" (Op. 37, No. 3) and "Ständchen" (Op. 17, No. 2) as well as Poulenc's {{Lang|fr|Trois Poèmes de Louise de Vilmorin}} and {{Lang|fr|Métamorphoses}}, Debussy's early {{Lang|fr|Proses Lyriques}}, and Beaser's Four Dickinson Songs. The New York Times review described Miller as "an agreeably flexible interpreter" with "considerable communicative powers" who sang "with a combination of gracefulness and energy that got to the core of the music she offered".Kozinn, Allan. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03EEDA163BF937A15756C0A9649C8B63 "Music in Review; Meagan Miller"], The New York Times, May 24, 2002. Accessed October 29, 2008.
As a soloist in works for voice and orchestra, she has sung in Beethoven's Mass in C major, Missa Solemnis, and Symphony No. 9; Handel's Messiah; Haydn's The Creation; Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem; Mozart's Requiem and Exsultate, jubilate; Bruckner's Mass in F minor; Poulenc's Gloria; Dvořák's Requiem, Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem; and Orff's Carmina Burana.
Miller can be heard in commercial recordings of Richard Strauss' Die Liebe der Danae and Bruckner's Mass in F minor (both with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein), Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and The Marilyn Horne Foundation Presents On Wings Of Song (1999/2000 season).{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}}
References
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External links
- [http://www.meaganmiller.com/ Meagan Miller official website]
- [https://lyricfest.org/interviews/interview-with-meagan-miller/ Interview with Meagan Miller] for Philadelphia's Lyric Fest, February 2012
- [http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wrti/arts.artsmain?action=viewArticle&id=1877177&pid=208&sid=15 Creatively Speaking], profile (audio) of Meagan Miller by David Patrick Stearns, WRTI, April 2011
- [http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/2011/02/interview-meagan-miller.html/ Interview: Meagan Miller], Oberon's Grove, February 1, 2011
- {{YouTube|5cf6IUOci7c|"Es gibt ein Reich"}}, Ariadne of Naxos, 2009
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Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:American operatic sopranos
Category:Archmere Academy alumni
Category:Washington and Lee University alumni
Category:Juilliard School alumni
Category:Winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions
Category:Singers from Delaware
Category:Musicians from Wilmington, Delaware
Category:Singers from Pennsylvania
Category:Classical musicians from Pennsylvania
Category:People from Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania
Category:20th-century American women opera singers
Category:People from West Chester, Butler County, Ohio