Katherine Ciesinski
- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
The New York Times called Katherine Ciesinski "a singer of rare
communicative presence, and a musician of discrimination and
intelligence." This accomplished American mezzo-soprano pursues a fully
integrated career, exploring the world of today's composers as well as
the established classics of the lyric stage. Major operatic credits
include three Metropolitan Opera productions: Judith (Bluebeard's
Castle) and Nicklausse (Les Contes d'Hoffmann) and most recently
Comtesse de Coigny (Andrea Chenier); Cassandre (Les Troyens) at Covent
Garden and Adalgisa (Norma) with Scottish Opera: Laura (La Gioconda),
Waltraute (Ring cycle), and Dulcinée (Don Quichotte) with San Francisco
Opera; Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) and Hansel (Hansel und Gretel) with
Dallas Opera; Kabanicha (Katya Kabanova), Mère Marie (Carmélites),
Adelaide (Arabella), Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro), and Cornelia
(Giulio Cesare) with Houston Grand Opera; Xerxes (title role), Diana
(La Calisto), Herodias (Salome), Ottavia (L'Incoronazione di Poppea),
and Countess Geschwitz in the American premiere of the completed three
act version of Lulu with Santa Fe Opera. World premieres of Mark
Adamo's Little Women (Houston), Dominick Argento's The Aspern Papers
(Dallas), Maurice Ohana's La Celestine (title role, Paris Opera),
Girolamo Arrigo's Il Ritorno di Casanova (Geneva), Param Vir's Snatched
by the Gods (Amsterdam and Munich) have been critically acclaimed, as
have her Giulietta in Brussels, Brangäne in Toronto, Judith in
Frankfurt and Stuttgart, Eboli in Madrid and La Favorite in Paris. This
past year she performed the world premiere of The End of the Affair by
Jake Heggie with Houston Grand Opera, which will be broadcast
nationally on NPR's World of Opera. She also appeared as Aunt Cecilia
March in her sixth production of Mark Adamo's delightful Little Women
(Mexico City), as Effie Belle Tate in Carlisle Floyd's masterpiece Cold
Sassy Tree (Opera Omaha), and as the Principessa in Puccini's Suor
Angelica (Opera Theater of Saint Louis). Most recently, she sang song
cycles of Prokofiev and Shostakovich in a multi-media concert entitled
The St. Petersburg Legacy with Da Camera of Houston in residence at the
Bard Music Festival in New York. Ms. Ciesinski has also performed with
many of the world's leading orchestras, including the Cleveland,
Minnesota, and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Symphonies of Chicago,
Boston, San Francisco, Houston and Toronto; and in Europe, with the
Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, L'Orchestre de Paris, the London
Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, and L'Orchestre de la
Suisse Romande. She has been heard in recital across the United States
and in Paris, Cologne, Zurich, Milan and at the Aix-en-Provence,
Geneva, Spoleto and Salzburg Festivals. Her contemporary chamber music
activities have included performances at the Caramoor Festival, New
York; Musica Festival, Strasbourg; Ars Musica Festival, Brussels;
Festival d'Automne, Paris; Voix Nouvelles, Fondation Royaumont; Schlern
International Festival in Italy, and with the Ensemble
Intercontemporain in Paris. Katherine Ciesinski's opera recordings
include the title roles in Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, conducted by Armin
Jordan (Erato), Regina, under John Mauceri (London/Decca), Sapho,
conducted by Sylvain Cambreling (Radio France), the role of Siegrune in
Cleveland Orchestra's Die Walküre, conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi
(London/Decca), and the role of Sonia in War and Peace, conducted by
Msitislav Rostropovich (Erato). She received a Grammy nomination for
her Paulina in The Queen of Spades with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston
Symphony (BMG). Recent releases include Aunt Cecilia March in Mark
Adamo's Little Women (Ondine), Sofia Ivanova in Tod Machover's
Resurrection (Albany) and Alt Solistin in Kurt Weill's Die Bürgschaft
(EMI). Les Noces with Robert Craft and Pribaoutki with the Orchestra of
St. Luke's (Music Masters), Carter's Syringa (Bridge), along with world
premiere recordings of Brian Ferneyhough's On Stellar Magnitudes and
Antoine Bonnet's Nachtstrahl in Paris, number among her choral and
chamber music releases. Lieder recordings include Rorem's Women's
Voices (CRI), Ravel's Chansons Madécasses (Columbia), and songs of
Dvorak, Alma Mahler and Clara Schumann (Leonarda). One of the few
master performers to also become a master teacher, Ms. Ciesinski is a
frequent clinician at the annual International Symposium on Care of the
Professional Voice in Philadelphia. She created the Vocal Workshop for
the annual International Composition Seminar at the Royaumont
Foundation in France, and the vocal chamber institute Close Encounters
for the Texas Music Festival. She continues to lecture in and serve on
the steering committee for the University of Texas School of Public
Health's Healthcare and the Arts Series, and this summer was invited to
join the faculty of the third Encuentro Artescenica in Mexico. She is
Professor of Voice and Chair of Voice Studies at the Moores School of
Music, University of Houston. Some of her recent students have joined
the faculties of Michigan State University, the University of
California San Jose, and apprentice programs at the Des Moines Metro,
Orlando, and the Santa Fe Operas.