Ms. Blythe's performance had everything: rich colorings, unforced power, exquisite phrasing and impressively agile coloratura runs.

—The New Yorker

Program

JAMES LEGG: Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
SAMUEL BARBER: Three Songs, Op. 10
Songs of Tin Pan Alley

Encore:
JOPLIN: Maple Leaf Rag (Mr. Jones)
ROBERT LOWRY: How Can I Keep from Singing (Ms. Blythe)
FOSTER: Beautiful Dreamer (Ms. Blythe and Mr. Jones)

About This Performance

A rare recital appearance by dramatic mezzo Stephanie Blythe, who has the chameleon-like ability to finesse an array of repertoire and roles. Initially hailed as the successor to the great Marilyn Horne, her career has rapidly grown to encompass music from Baroque to bel canto and from Classical to contemporary with “compelling immediacy and subtle differentiation” (Wall Street Journal).

Artist Biography

Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is considered to be one of the most highly respected artists of her generation.

Blythe has sung in many of the renowned opera houses in the U.S. and Europe including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Opera National de Paris. Her many roles include the title roles in Carmen, Samson et Dalila , Orfeo ed Euridice, La Grande Duchesse, Tancredi, Mignon, and Guilio Cesare; Frugola, Principessa, and Zita in the Il Trittico, Fricka in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Azucena in Il Trovatore, Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera, Baba the Turk in The Rake's Progress, Jezibaba in Rusalka, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Mere Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites; Isabella in L'Italiana in Algeri, Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, Ino/Juno in Semele and Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus.

Blythe has appeared with many of the world's finest orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Orchestra of New York, Minnesota Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Ensemble Orchestre de Paris. She has also appeared at the Tangelwood and Ravinia Festival, and at the BBC Proms. The many conductors with whom she has worked include Harry Bicket, James Conlon, Charles Dutoit, Mark Elder, Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, Nicola Luisotti, Sir Charles Mackerras, John Nelson, Antonio Pappano, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Robert Spano, Patrick Summers and Michael Tilson Thomas.

A frequent recitalist, Blythe has been presented in recital in New York by Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series at Alice Tully Hall and its American Songbook Series at the Allen Room, the 92nd Street Y, Town Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also been presenter by the Vocal Arts Society and at the Supreme Court at the invitation of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in Washington, DC; the Cleveland Art Song Festival, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Shriver Hall in Baltimore.

A champion of American song, she recently premiered Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, by the late James Legg in Town Hall. She also premiered Vignettes: Ellis Island, a song cycle written especially for her by Alan Smith which was featured in a special television program entitled Vignettes: An Evening with Stephanie Blythe and Warren Jones. Her most recent collaboration with Smith was Covered Wagon Woman, a piece commissioned for Blythe's residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and recorded with the ensemble on its own label, CMS Studio Recordings.

Blythe starred in the Metropolitan Opera's live HD broadcasts of Orfeo et Euridice and Il Trittico. Her recordings of works by Mahler, Brahms and Wagner and of arias by Handel and Bach are available on the Virgin Classics label.

This season, Blythe appeared as Fricka in the Metropolitan Opera's new productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre and made her debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Un Ballo in Maschera and The Mikado. She also appeared in concert at the Concertgebouw and with the Collegiate Chorale in Carnegie Hall. This summer she appears in concerts at the Cincinnati May Festival and the Tanglewod Festival, and next season she returns to the Metropolitan Opera for Rodelinda, Aida and the complete Ring Cycle, and appears with the New York Philharmonic and with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra at Cal Performances.

Blythe was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year for 2009. Her other awards include the 2007 Opera News Award and the 1999 Richard Tucker Award.

Warren Jones has recently been named as “Collaborative Pianist of the Year” for 2010 by Musical America. He performs with many of today's best-known artists, including Stephanie Blythe, Denyce Graves, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Anthony Dean Griffey, Ruth Ann Swenson, Bo Skovhus, Samuel Ramey, James Morris, John Relyea, Joseph Alessi and Richard “Yongjae” O’Neill—and is principal pianist for the exciting California-based chamber music group Camerata Pacifica. In the past he has partnered such great performers as Marilyn Horne, Håkan Hagegård, Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney, Carol Vaness, Judith Blegen, Tatiana Troyanos and Martti Talvela. His collaborations have earned consistently high praise from many publications: Boston Globe termed him “flawless” and “utterly ravishing”; the New York Times, “exquisite”; and the San Francisco Chronicle said simply, “He is the single finest accompanist now working.”

Jones has often been a guest artist at Carnegie Hall and in Lincoln Center‘s "Great Performers Series," as well as the festivals of Tanglewood, Ravinia and Caramoor. His international travels have taken him to recitals at the Salzburg Festival, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Maggio Musicale Festival in Florence, the Teatro Fenice in Venice, Paris' Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Opéra Bastille, Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Cultural Centre in Hong Kong and theatres throughout Scandinavia and Korea. Jones has been invited three times to the White House by American presidents to perform at concerts honoring the President of Russia, and Prime Ministers of Italy and Canada—and three times he has appeared at the U.S. Supreme Court as a specially invited performer for the Justices and their guests. As a guest at the Library of Congress, Jones has appeared with the Juilliard Quartet in performances of the Schumann Piano Quintet.

Recent seasons have included his debut with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in a work commissioned for Stephanie Blythe and him, Covered Wagon Woman, by Alan Louis Smith. In addition to performances with the Borromeo and Brentano Quartets, he has been heard at the New York Philharmonic in the Sextet of Ernst von Dohnanyi, and been invited to participate regularly in the annual Marilyn Horne Foundation gala festivities at Carnegie Hall, both as performer and Master Class teacher. In the summer of 2009, he conducted sold-out, critically-acclaimed performances of Mascagni's L'amico Fritz with the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera.

Jones’s discography includes more than 25 recordings: the latest is a compilation of new songs by the American composer Lori Laitman on the Albany label. He can be heard on every major record label, in diverse repertory from Schubert and Brahms to more esoteric compositions of Gretchaninoff, Clarke and Smit, as well as contemporary works by Harbison and others.

Jones is a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where highly gifted young artists work with him in a unique graduate degree program in collaborative piano. Each summer he teaches and performs at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. For ten years he was Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and for three seasons served in the same capacity at San Francisco Opera.

Jones is also a prominent musical jurist, having been a judge for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the Walter Naumberg Foundation Awards, the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Artists’ Association International Fine Arts Competition, and the American Council for the Arts.

Born in Washington, D.C., Jones grew up in North Carolina and graduated with honors from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been honored with the Conservatory’s Outstanding Alumni Award, and currently serves on the Board of Overseers of that institution. A resident of New York City, Jones enjoys cooking, exercise, historical novels and lively political discussion.

Links/Downloads

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