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Gigi Mitchell-Velasco
mezzo-soprano
“...an intense interpreter; an extremely communicative singer whose artistic talent goes beyond the use of her voice.”
Gigi
Mitchell-Velasco, a
native of Dallas, Texas,
has been called “an intense
interpreter; an extremely communicative singer whose artistic talent
goes beyond the use of her voice.” She is a versatile
performer
who appears in a variety of repertoire on the concert, opera and
recital stages and has been recognized by audiences, critics and
colleagues as having a rich voice with unusual size, timbre and an
extraordinary range. With a voice ideally suited to the German romantic
repertoire, she has been praised for her interpretations of Wagner,
Mahler and Strauss. The New York Times' Anthony Tommasini wrote that
she sang with a "dark-hued sound and elegance," and the Wall Street
Journal called her "the most finished artist, sensitive to every nuance
of the text."
This
season has
seen two return engagements with Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas
Symphony in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
and in Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky
and Rihm's Memoria.
Two concerts
entitled
Under a Latin Moon and two
more called Love
and Other Difficulties were
sung with the Aurea Ensemble in
Rhode Island and at Shakespeare & Company featuring songs of
Villalobos and Respighi's Il Tramonto. A
return to the Chorus of Westerly for Durufle's Requiem, OperaProvidence
for two opera concerts, and debuts with the Charlotte Symphony
in Bach’s Mass in B minor and
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
in Mendelssohn’s Elijah
at Boston's Symphony Hall and New York's
Carnegie Hall cap the season.
The
08/09 season
began with Ms. Mitchell-Velasco's long-awaited debut in her birthplace
with the Dallas Symphony and Andrew Litton in Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony,
of which critics from Dallas
and Fort Worth wrote that she “delivered the final laments
with
mellifluous authority” and “fully realized the
emotional
power of the piece.” Another momentous debut, on short
notice,
was in Caracas, Venezuela with the Orquesta Sinfónica di
Simón Bolivar and Benjamin Zander in Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.
Other debuts include
Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion with
Lincoln Symphony (Nebraska) and Edward Polochick, Sharpe’s Proud Music of the Storm
with Washington Chorus
(Kennedy Center) and Julian Wachner, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
with Colorado Music Festival and
Michael Christie, Handel’s Messiah
with Worcester Chorus and Andrew Clark, and as Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus
with Opera Providence and Timothy
Steele. Return engagements include Beethoven’s Ninth with Symphony
Silicon Valley and Fabio
Mechetti, Mendelssohn’s Elijah
with
Back Bay Chorale and Scott Allen Jarrett, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky
with Charleston Symphony and
David Stahl, Mahler’s Third Symphony
with West Virginia Symphony and Grant Cooper, Handel’s Messiah
with Providence Singers and Andrew
Clark, and another Duo Recital, Songs of Travel, with husband, tenor
Noel Espíritu Velasco at Willow Dell Historical
Association's
The Barn in Matunuck RI.
Ms. Mitchell-Velasco
began the 07/08 season with
summer performances of Debussy's La Damoiselle
Élue
at Chicago's Grant Park Music Festival and a Duo
Recital, Love under the Stars, with her tenor husband, Noel
Espíritu Velasco, for Matunuck RI’s Willow Dell
Historical
Association. October brought a Chamber Music Recital at Falmouth
MA’s Highfield Hall featuring Brahms’ Zwei
Lieder für Alt und Brasche,
Berg’s Sieben
Frühe Lieder and
Loeffler’s Quatre
Poëmes, and November
Beethoven’s Mass
in C in a return to
RI’s Westerly Chorus. Then in December came
Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony with Andreas Delfs
on her return
to Milwaukee and her debut with Honolulu Symphony.
The 2006/07 season
began with a Verdi Requiem
in Ms. Mitchell-Velasco’s debut
with the New Hampshire Music Festival. Two recitals and a live
broadcast on Boston’s NPR station WGBH featured
Mahler’s Des
Knaben Wunderhorn with
baritone René
de la Garza and pianist Timothy Steele, coupled with giving a
Masterclass on German Lieder at the University of Rhode Island.
December marked a return to Carnegie Hall for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio
with Orchestra of St.
Luke’s and the Collegiate Chorale. January saw a last-minute
replacement in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion,
again at Carnegie Hall, with Helmut Rilling conducting the Orchestra of
St. Luke’s and the Carnegie Festival Choir. Four other
recitals
have been scheduled, one with tenor Noel Espíritu Velasco in
Honolulu last November, a second with the Blackstone Valley Chamber
Series in February, a third repeating Wunderhorn
in Chopin Club President’s Concert in Providence, and a
fourth
one at the Columbus Museum of Art (Ohio) featuring an all-French
program of Poulenc, Ravel and Loeffler, the last two in April 2007.
March 2007 include a return to the Providence Singers for their
American Masterpieces Choral Festival and yet another Verdi Requiem,
this time with Symphony Silicon Valley
in San Jose, California. Two engagements of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis,
in a return to Milwaukee
Symphony and a debut with Phoenix Symphony, will highlight May 2007.
Season 2005/06
includes returns to Toledo Opera
as Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly,
to Houston Symphony with Hans Graf in Verdi’s Requiem,
and to Milwaukee Symphony with Andreas
Delfs in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,
as well as debuts in Handel’s Judas
Maccabeus with Orchestra of
Saint Luke’s, and in
Mendelssohn’s Elijah
with San Diego
Symphony and Jahja Ling, with whom Ms. Mitchell-Velasco previously sang
a Verdi Requiem
with Florida Orchestra. A
Recital Concert at Ohio State University (with a Master Classes
entitled The
Commonalities between Vocal and
Instrumental Performance)
in November and a Duo Recital
with husband Noel in Pasadena CA in May completed the season.
The 2004/05 season began
with a Masterclass and
a reprise of her Solo Recital La Femme!
at
Binghamton University. On her return to sing Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde
with Benjamin Zander and
Boston Philharmonic, Boston Globe wrote: "She has a dark and opulent
voice...she brought intensity and passion to her songs." She returned
to West Virginia Symphony to sing Brahms' Alto
Rhapsody in March. Three
debuts come this season: as
Parséïs in Massenet's Esclarmonde
with Washington Concert Opera, and in Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony with Michael
Christie and Brooklyn Philharmonic in
April and Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony in June. A
return to the Chorus of Westerly and the Boston Festival Orchestra for
Mozart's Requiem
in May as well as an
immediate return to the Washington Concert Opera as Federica in Verdi's
Luisa
Miller in June add to the
season. With her husband, tenor Noel Espiritu Velasco, she sang a
tribute to Sarah Caldwell last October, and will sing in a function at
Boston's Opera House in May and a Duo Recital in San Francisco in June.
In her recent return
to the Florentine Opera to
portray Brangæne in Wagner's Tristan und
Isolde, critic Erik Eriksson
said: "Gigi Mitchell-Velasco is
world-class in every aspect. Slim, even willowy, she creates a devoted
companion who seeks to do right, but sets loose forces beyond her
comprehension. Mitchell-Velasco's mezzo is beautiful, compact and
supple, offering an unbroken legato unmatched since her mentor, the
great Christa Ludwig, commanded the role. To hear her pour forth
measure after measure of inexhaustible tone carries one back to the era
when Wagnerian titans regularly trod the world stages. In addition, her
‘Watch’ was voiced with palpable apprehension, its
exquisite sound floating over the lovers in the troubled nighttime."
2003/04’s season also included L’Enfance
du Christ as Chorus pro
Musica celebrated Berlioz’ 200th
birth anniversary on December 11, 2003 at Boston’s Basilica
of
Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Handel’s Messiah
with Providence Singers in Providence RI and New Haven CT. On
portraying Federica in Verdi’s Luisa Miller
with Opera Boston, Opera News wrote: “Rounding out the cast
was
the promising Gigi Mitchell-Velasco as Luisa's rival, Duchess Federica,
whose rich, warm mezzo-soprano voice filled the theater.”
Singing
in Mahler’s Third
Symphony with
Zander and NEC’s Youth Philharmonic, Boston Globe wrote:
“Mezzo-soprano Gigi Mitchell-Velasco sang her solo with rich
tone, eloquence, and restraint.”
The 2002/03 season began
with a September 11 Memorial Concert
in Providence’s First Baptist Church in America. An October
Solo
Recital La
Femme! for National Breast
Cancer Awareness in Providence’s Bell Chapel Music Series
featured Beethovens Klärchen songs from Egmont,
Schumann's Frauenliebe
und Leben, Wolf
songs, Berlioz' La
Mort de Cléopâtre
and Gwyneth Walker's No
Ordinary Woman!
December brought her debut with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in
Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium
with
Andreas Delfs conducting. January featured a live broadcast
Recital/Interview on Boston’s public radio WGBH-FM and a Solo
Recital at Pickman Concert Hall in Cambridge MA to promote the U.S.
release of her Korngold CD on November 27, 2002. There were two
Valentines concerts of Brahms’ Liebeslieder
Wälzer in Rhode
Island in February; then her first
performances as Dorabella in Mozart’s Così
fan Tutte with Toledo Opera
in April. In May, she returned to
Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
and then back to Rhode Island for
Dvorák’s Stabat Mater
with
the Chorus of Westerly and the Boston Festival Orchestra. June and July
were filled with recitals, one with the Blackstone Valley Heritage
Series featuring Berlioz’ Les Nuits
d’Été
and 15 concerts in her highly
anticipated debut at the Newport Music Festival which included
Mahler’s Lieder
eines fahrenden Gesellen
and 75 various other songs, mostly by Poulenc.
On September 29, 2001, a
stirring Verdi Requiem
with the New Philharmonia Orchestra to an overflowing audience marked a
Memorial Concert for those who were lost on September 11th, prompting
the Boston Globe to say: “She poured out opulent and
impassioned
tone throughout the evening, thrilling the listener particularly in the
declamatory Liber
scriptus proferetur.”
In preparation for her forthcoming recording for ASV in January
(released in the U.K. and Europe in October 7, 2002) of the works for
mezzo-soprano and orchestra of Erich Wolfgang Korngold with Caspar
Richter and the Bruckner Orchestra, Ms. Mitchell-Velasco presented a
Solo Recital of Korngold’s Einfache Lieder
and Abschiedslieder
along with songs of
Mahler and Strauss on December 23, 2001. Engagements in 2002 included
Kodaly’s Te
Deum with Hans Graf and
the Houston Symphony Orchestra, Verdi’s Requiem
with Jahja Ling and the Florida Orchestra, Bach’s Matthäuspassion
with Andreas Delfs and the
Milwaukee Symphony, and a pair of Mahler’s Resurrection
Symphony, with Paul Phillips
and the Pioneer Valley Symphony and
the other with Hans Graf and the Calgary Philharmonic. That summer, she
sang a Duo Recital and Masterclasses with tenor Noel
Espíritu
Velasco at the Taylor Choral Festival in Little Rock. Arkansas
In the 2000/01 season, Miss
Mitchell-Velasco sang in
Mendelssohn’s A
Midsummer Night’s
Dream with Hans Graf and the
National Symphony at Wolf Trap and
Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony with the
West Virginia Symphony at Snowshoe Music Festival. She then traveled
abroad for performances in Prague, where she portrayed the title role
in Bizet’s Carmen
with the Prague
State Opera under Rudolf Kre(mer, and participated at the Prague Autumn
Festival singing concerts with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
sings in the Dvorák Requiem
with
Dimitrij Kitajenko and Bernstein’s Arias
and Barcarolles with Vladimir
Valek. Ms. Mitchell-Velasco was
hand-picked by her mentor, Christa Ludwig, to participate in her
Carnegie Hall Symposium on Brahms and Mahler, to sing in a series of
Master Classes and in the concluding Recital Concert. She returned to
Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall to sing in the Verdi Requiem
with the National Chorale, and made her
debut with the Santa Barbara Symphony under Gisèle Ben-Dor
in
Mahler’s Third
Symphony. She
reprised Verdi’s Requiem
with David
Stahl and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and sang with the Essex
Symphony in their inaugural concert featuring de Falla’s El Amor Brujo
and Copland’s Old
American Songs.
Gigi Mitchell-Velasco’s 1999-2000 season included her Carnegie Hall debut singing in Bruckner’s Te Deum with the New York Choral Society. The season also marked her first performances of two Strauss roles which are among the mainstay in her repertoire: the title role of Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, in her debut with the Minnesota Opera; and The Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, in her return to the New York Opera Project. She also made her debut with the San Antonio Symphony in Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette, and returned to Masterworks Chorale in Boston for Verdi’s Requiem. In the 1998/99 season, Miss Mitchell-Velasco made her debuts with Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic at Boston’s Symphony Hall as Alto I: Mulier Samaritana in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, and with Boston’s Masterworks Chorale in A Night at the Opera.
Other engagements have included concerts with the New York Choral Society as Alto II: Maria Aegyptiaca in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony at Avery Fisher Hall and the Philadelphia Academy of Music, with the Martinú Philharmonic in Vienna and Prague in the Mozart Requiem, with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra as Brangæne in a concert version of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, with the Pioneer Valley Symphony on two day’s notice in Ravel’s Shéhérazade and de Falla’s El Amor Brujo, and various performances with Sarah Caldwell and the Ural State Philharmonic in Ekaterinburg (Russia) of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, highlights of Bizet’s Carmen (title role) and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (Suzuki), the Verdi Requiem, and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (role of Geneviève), the last two concerts being telecast over Russian television.
1995 marked Ms. Mitchell-Velasco's European debut with the Staatstheater Braunschweig (Germany) singing the role of Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto, and was immediately re-engaged there in the role of Mary in Wagner’s Die Fliegende Holländer. When Miss Mitchell-Velasco sang a performance of Die Fledermaus as Prince Orlofsky in Boston, she also perfected a flute “duel” with Boston Symphony flutist Fenwick Smith in the party scene to everyone’s astonishment and delight. Miss Mitchell-Velasco was engaged by Eve Queler and the Opera Orchestra of New York for concert performances of Tristan und Isolde (Brangæne), and portrayed the roles of Federica in Verdi’s Luisa Miller with the Lansing Lyric Opera in Michigan, the Mother and the Witch in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel with the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee, and Fricka in Wagner’s Das Rheingold with the New York Opera Project. Throughout her career, Gigi Mitchell-Velasco’s assortment of opera roles have also included Amneris in Aïda, Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, Flora in La Traviata and Erste Magd in Elektra.
In addition, Miss Mitchell-Velasco has been heard in Handel’s Messiah, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, and Bernstein’s “Lamentation” from his Jeremiah Symphony. She has sung recital concerts in Ekaterinburg (Russia), New York, Providence and with Connecticut’s Litchfield Performing Arts Series in a varied repertoire in French, German, Spanish, Russian and English, and her specialty is the Lieder Recital, featuring songs and song cycles of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, Wolf, Pfitzner and Berg.
Gigi Mitchell-Velasco graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with a degree in Flute. While at the Institute, her voice made quite an impression and she was urged to take up vocal study. She was ultimately accepted into the Curtis Opera Department. Miss Mitchell-Velasco was then offered a double major of flute and voice, but chose instead to focus on the flute, which she has been playing since childhood. Upon graduating from Curtis, she went to the Opera Company of Boston as principal flutist, a position she held for eight years. During this time, she also worked with the London Symphony’s principal flutist, Peter Lloyd. However, upon encouragement from renowned mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig, Miss Mitchell-Velasco began singing once again. After studying for only a few months, she participated in the Rosa Ponselle International Voice Competition and placed in the top 25 singers winning the Silver Rose Award. She was also a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional Auditions and was in the Santa Fe Opera Artist Apprentice Program. She studied with Mignon Dunn and subsequently worked extensively with Christa Ludwig who encouraged her greatly. Miss Ludwig also arranged for Miss Mitchell-Velasco to sing for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf who was most complimentary. In May 1993, she was awarded the first Robert Lauch Memorial Grant by the Wagner Society of New York, a grant she was again awarded in 1996, and in 1999 she received another grant from them. In 1997 she won the American Wagner Association Award in the Liederkranz Competition for Wagnerian Voice. In 1966 she won First Prize in the Annamaria Saritelli-diPanni Bel Canto Award, and in 2001 received a Grant from the Bel Canto Scholarship Foundation. She was also a European finalist of the Pavarotti International Voice Competition and a finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional Auditions. Miss Mitchell-Velasco has also worked as a chamber musician, teacher, coach and pianist-accompanist.
February 2008
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