The Slipped Disc daily comfort zone (184): They don’t let you in the opera
mainA sensational social commentary by Broadway star Kelli O’Hara.
Was she ever at the Met?
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Is that a rhetorical question? She has sung 21 performance is at the Met.
And more scheduled for the future.
Fabulous. What a talented woman.
She was in the Met’s ‘Cosi fan tutte’ two years ago. Plenty of clips online
Yes she was in Merry Widow and Cosi fan Tutte at the Met. Check the Met database to confirm. And very successful in both.
Kelli O’Hara was at the Met twice–Merry Widow and Cosi. She grew up in a tiny town in Oklahoma and was one of several very successful Broadway and opera singers from the music program at Oklahoma City University, including Kristin Chenoweth and Leona Mitchell.
This is from Stephen Holden’s rave review in the NYT of O’Hara’s show at Feinstein’s in NYC in 2010: “’They Don’t Let You in the Opera if You’re a Country Star,’ the funny song that best exemplified Ms. O’Hara’s instinct to assimilate, is a piece by Mr. Lipton and David Rossmer that has become a staple in her performances. In it a country singer in the final stages of pregnancy makes her operatic debut and hits a coloratura high note the moment she gives birth….It is a fiercely demanding showpiece that illustrates the proximity of country music to opera; it is also a surefire crowd pleaser.”
Yes, she has sung at the Met. She sang Valencienne in Lehar’s The Merry Widow, and later sang Despina in Cosi fan tutte
Indeed she was at the Met, and as a very charming Despina with a perfectly operatic voice.
Yes — as Valencienne and Despina. She has also done Dido elsewhere. One-click google.
This was a delightful find: thank you. One to circulate.
She made her Met debut in The Merry Widow in 2014, and returned as Despina in Cosi in 2018.
Indeed she was at the Met, as Despina in 2018.
Ha! What fun.
More significant than what Ms O’Hara has already sung at the Met, is what she WILL sing. She’s been announced as one of the 3 co-stars engaged to bring the Michael Cunningham novel (and celebrated film) “The Hours” to life as an opera during the 2022 season. She will portray the part of Laura (Julianne Moore in the film). As this new Kevin Puts commission costars Renée Fleming, and Joyce DiDonato, the Met seems to be pulling out all the stops for this new premiere.
For those who think opera is somehow not american.
I saw her as Despina at the Met and I fell in love immediately.