Olivia Johnson
mezzo-soprano
EVENTS CALENDAR
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Die Zauberflöte:
January 26th, 2025 @ 2 pm, Staatsoper Stuttgart
Oberer Schloßgarten 6
70173 Stuttgart, Germany
Click HERE for further information and Tickets!
The Fairy-Queen:
February 23rd, 2025 @ 3 pm, JOiN, Nord / JOiN
Löwentorstraße 68
70376 Stuttgart, Germany
Click HERE for further information and Tickets!
The Fairy-Queen:
February 24th, 2025 @ 7 pm, JOiN, Nord / JOiN
Löwentorstraße 68
70376 Stuttgart, Germany
Click HERE for further information and Tickets!
Photo Credit: George Arnaldo
Bio
Mezzo-soprano, Olivia Johnson has been heralded by Opera News as a “standout... commanding and reassuring, with the timbre of a contralto and the astounding upper extension of a dramatic mezzo” for her portrayal of Girlfriend 3 in Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s opera, Blue (Detroit Opera, 2021).
This season Olivia Johnson has joined Staatsoper Stuttgart’s International Opera Studio. There she will make her German debut in the role of Inez in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. Following Il Trovatore, Johnson is scheduled to appear in the role of Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflöte, Emalia in Verdi’s Otello, and 2nd Fairy/Mystery/Attendant/Summer/2nd Woman in Purcell’s Fairy Queen.
Before moving to Germany, Johnson competed in the 40th Annual Cooper-Bing Competition Finals where she placed 4th. During the 2023-2024 season, Ms. Johnson had the privilege of making her debut at The Metropolitan Opera as an Alto I soloist in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X by Anthony Davis. Ms. Johnson is also honored to be a recipient of the Bagby Foundation Career Grant this season. The grant is awarded to support emerging artists that show great promise within the music industry.
This summer of 2023, she was featured as a Gerdine Young Artist in Opera theatre of Saint Louis’ Summer Festival. Nearing the end of the festival, Ms. Johnson had the most exhilarating evening where she stepped in as the cover of Monisha making her debut in Damien Sneed and Karen Chilton’s reimagined opera of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha. Wall Street Journal noted that “Olivia Johnson … delivered with aplomb the aria in which Treemonisha’s mother recounts her daughter’s origins”. While at OTSL, she also covered the malicious smalltown bully, Mrs. McLean in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah and was featured in OTSL’s Center Stage with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra singing Pauline in the Pique Dame Duet, Charlotte in Sondheim’s “A Weekend in the Country” and Larina in the Act II Finale of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.
Prior to the summer festival, Ms. Johnson had the privilege of participating in OTSL’s New Works Collective workshop in December of 2022 and returned in March of this year to perform leading roles in two of the three original 20-minute operas. This included Sister in Madison Lodge by Tre’von Griffith and Dr. Patricia E. Bath in Cook Shack by Del’Shawn Taylor and Samiya Bashir. Ms. Johnson was recognized for her performance in the New Works Collective by KDHX stating that “…Johnson was a strong, confident presence as Sister.”
Click HERE for Full Bio!
