Another exciting guest artist for Opera Australia next year is American Soprano Jennifer Rowley.

Soprano Jennifer Rowley, winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Career Grant, burst onto the international scene as a last minute replacement in the title role of Donizetti’s MARIA DI ROHAN at the 2010 Caramoor Music Festival, a performance she gave with just one day’s notice and one rehearsal. The New York Times stated, “Throughout, she sang with a fluid, darkly rich voice and expressively conveyed Maria’s anguish,” and Opera News raved that she “emerge(d) not just unscathed, but a real star… Rowley revealed a commanding soprano voice, richly colored, with an attractive thrust and full control of trills, roulades and vocal shadings.” She followed that performance with critically acclaimed successes at the Norwegian National Opera as Musetta in La Bohème (soon to be released on DVD), as well as at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni.

Future engagements include her Carnegie Hall debut singing Verdi’s REQUIEM MASS  with the St. Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra. She will also sing the role of Queen Orasia in Telemann’s ORPHEUS in her debut with New York City Opera in May 2012. Ms. Rowley will return to the Savonlinna Opera Festival this summer where she will be a featured artist on the festival’s 100th anniversary gala, and as Lucifer in the world premiere opera, FRE WILL. She has been engaged to perform Musetta in LA BOHEME for Toledo Opera, and she will then join the roster of the Metropolitan Opera for their 2012/2013 season when she covers Desdemona in OTELLO. She has also been engaged by the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, and Opera Australia to perform in future productions.

Ms. Rowley is one of the top prize winners of the 2011 Opera Index Vocal Competition, receiving the William H. Wells Founders Award. She was a winner of the 2011 William Mattheus Sullivan Musical Foundation awards, a first prize winner of the 2011 Gerda Lissner Foundation International Vocal Competition, a grant winner of the 2011 Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Competition, and an Honorable Mention recipient from the 2011 George London Foundation competition. She was the winner of the 2010 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions for the Michigan District. Ms. Rowley was also awarded an Anna Sosenko Assist Trust Grant for her international work with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in 2009.

Ms. Rowley made her professional debut in 2003 in DIE ZAUBERFLOTE with the Cleveland Opera, conducted by Anton Coppola. More recently, during the 2008-2009 season, she was a member of the Scuola dell’Opera Italiana at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, where she made her main stage debut as Magda in LA RONDINE. In summer of 2009, she sang Konstanze in Mozart’s DIE ENTFUHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL with Opera New Jersey, followed by her Avery Fisher Hall debut in New York City in the Mid-Autumn Chinese Festival concert, and Donna Anna in DON GIOVANNI for Michigan Opera Theatre, in the Spring of 2010. Other roles in her repertory include Rosalinde inDIE FLEDERMAUS, many of the Mozart heroine’s including Elettra in IDOMENEO, and bel canto’s LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, ANNA BOLENA, and Elvira in I PURITANI.

Ms. Rowley was a Gerdine Young Artist Apprentice at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2007 where she covered Violetta in LA TRAVIATA, and was a featured dancer and dance captain inTHE MIKADO. Other young artist opportunities included a summer each with the Caramoor Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, and Portland Opera’s POPI. Ms. Rowley also spent a summer in Buenos Aires, Argentina at the Instituto Superior del Arte of the Teatro Colón, where she was the first Ambassador of the Arts for the Ohio Arts Council, initiating an exchange program between the Instituto and American conservatories of music.

Ms. Rowley holds a Master’s Degree with honors from Indiana University School of Music and a Bachelor’s Degree with Magna Cum Laude honors from the Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. She also holds a Certificate of Performance Achievement from the Instituto Superior del Arte of the Teatro Colón, and was a Max Kade Scholar at the Middlebury College German for Singers Program.

The Opera Insider suspects she has been engaged to sing the soprano lead in a Verdi opera for the bicentennial of Verdi’s birth.