Opera singer discusses her successful career

Soprano Angela Meade has established a reputation as one of the most respected opera singers of her generation. Hailed as “astounding” and “a force of nature,” the American soprano has come a long way since her days as a master’s student at the Thornton School of Music.

Meade is collected and reserved; one would never guess from her down-to-earth personality that she has graced the stages of some of the world’s most prominent opera houses. Meade spoke about her road to success, starting out as a pre-med student in college and eventually becoming “the most talked about soprano of her generation,” according to Opera News.

Meade’s operatic studies began after high school in her hometown of Centralia, Washington. She enrolled in a local community college intending to become a doctor. It was also here that she began singing.

“I moonlighted in the college choir,” Meade said. “I found it to be a great outlet from all of those science and lab courses.”

At this point, Meade hadn’t had any formal vocal training; it was her college choir director who introduced her to her first voice teacher. In due time, her superiors realized that she possessed an extraordinary talent for this art and encouraged her to pursue opera professionally.

She went on to graduate from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and soon after began her Master’s of music in vocal arts at USC, where she studied under tenor Gary Glaze. Meade notes that her time at USC was occupied with hard work and devotion to her craft.

“I had a really great time at USC,” Meade said. “I was very focused — I was involved in the opera every semester I was there and was involved in recital repertoire as well.”

She graduated with her master’s degree in 2004 and briefly began her Doctorate in musical arts at USC before gaining acceptance to the prestigious Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, a post-graduate opera program that has produced some of opera’s most successful singers.

While still in her studies at AVA, Meade won the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, arguably the most prestigious vocal competition in the country. It was just one of many competitions she would eventually dominate, winning a total of 57 of them throughout the span of her early career. The day after the she won the Met competition, the Met offered her contract to cover the lead role of Elvira in Giuseppe Verdi’s Ernani that would be staged the following season. A year later, she would make her Met debut as a last minute replacement.

“I was getting out of a taxi when I got a call,” Meade said. “I was just in New York for a costume fitting and had just returned to Philadelphia when the Met asked me to step in.”

With only a day’s notice and few rehearsals under her belt, she accepted and soon returned to New York.

Usually, singers must already have an established career before singing, let alone debuting, a major role at the Met. But Meade isn’t like most singers; she possesses a voice that is larger than life yet is still agile enough to produce rapid-fire coloratura. It’s a voice that is seamless from her stratospheric high notes to her thunderous lower register. Her successful debut sealed her fate as opera’s newest “it girl” and has been a regular at the Met ever since.

Future engagements for Meade include Verdi’s Requiem in both Brazil and Spain this spring, as well as her debut with Teatro Real in Madrid in its production of Norma next season. When not performing, Meade describes herself a homebody, preferring to stay home or traveling with her new husband, tenor and opera singer John Matthew Myers.

“[Myers] and I are both very down to earth,” Meade said. “It’s nice that he totally understands what I do. He understands the travel, and we’re able to spend a lot of time traveling together. It’s the key to keeping [our marriage] normal and alive.”

At the peak of her career, Meade shows no signs of slowing down. This season, she returns to LA Opera in the title role of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, a role she has performed several times. Norma is described as one of the most vocally and emotionally taxing roles in operatic repertoire; fittingly, this is Meade’s bread and butter.

“It’s a role that I feel very close to,” said Meade. “As I get older and wiser, I realize new things about the character. I don’t think of her so much as the leader of the Druids — I think of her as a woman.”

LA Opera’s production of Norma runs from Nov. 21 to Dec. 13. Student tickets can be found online.