Saratoga alum to take center stage in two roles at The Met
Former Opera Saratoga festival artist Tessa McQueen named in two vital upcoming roles at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.
After making her Met debut last season as the Countess Ceprano in the classic Rigoletto, Opera Saratoga alum Tessa McQueen was just announced in two major roles for the prestigious company’s 2025-2026 season.
The soprano, a 2024 National Finalist in the Met’s Laffont Competition, will play the First Lady in December’s holiday performances of The Magic Flute. And in the spring, she’ll sing Annina in La Traviata, The Metropolitan Opera announced today.
“Tessa is so fantastic, a true star with an incredible acting range,” says Opera Saratoga General and Artistic Director Mary Birnbaum. “She has an enormous career ahead of her, and we’re so proud that she is a grad of Opera Saratoga’s Festival Artist Program.”
McQueen is currently in her second year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. In addition to her roles in The Magic Flute and La Traviata, she will also cover the role of Helen in the world-renowned company’s premiere of Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventuress of Kavalier & Clay this fall. Since her Rigoletto debut, McQueen has also sang the role of the Priestess in the company’s new production of Aida and covered Chloë in The Queen of Spades.
The Colorado graduated with honors from Oklahoma City University with a degree in voice, and holds a degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. In addition to Opera Saratoga, she is an alumna of the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera, the Wolf Trap Opera Studio, and the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program at Central City Opera.
McQueen has also sung Nedda in Pagliacci and covered Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with the Merola Opera Program’s Schwabacher Summer Concert Series. She covered Marguerite in Faust at Wolf Trap Opera, and has appeared as a soprano soloist in both Mozart’s Grand C-minor Mass with the Washington City Choir and John Rutter’s Requiem with the Rice Chorale.
In addition to her Laffont Competition placement, she earned third place in the 2023 Palm Springs Opera Guild Competition, third in the 2022 Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition, and won the 2022 Young Artist of the Season award from Central City Opera.
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