From Berlin, Germany, Mary Mills is Visiting Lecturer in Voice in the Division of Vocal Studies. Ms. Mills graduated from the College-Conservatory of Music at University of Cincinnati, received a master of music from Yale University, and has sung the great operatic roles on many of the major stages in Europe and the United States. Her repertoire ranges from Monteverdi to Mozart and Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and Wagner to Janáček along with contemporary works. She is equally at home in the Italian, French, German and Slavic repertoires and in the operas of her native United States, and has interpreted new and unfamiliar works from both early twentieth century and contemporary opera.
Mills made her professional operatic debut with Houston Grand Opera, sang more than eighteen productions with San Francisco Opera, including Pamina, Mimi, Micaela, and most notably the world premiere of the role of Cecile in Conrad Susa's The Dangerous Liaisons, alongside Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade and Thomas Hampson, which was televised on PBS' Great Performances Series. Ms. Mills made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Zdenka and returned for more seasons as Micaëla and Mimì. She made her European debut as Charpentier's Louise in Geneva in 1992, a success that immediately resulted in invitations to the renowned Wexford Festival in Ireland (Camille in Herold's Zampa) the Washington Opera (The Cunning Little Vixen) and the Bregenz Festival (Olga in Giordano's Fedora.)
She performed the title role of Joan of Arc in the first ever staged production of Walter Braunfel’s opera Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen, Johanna in a Christoph Schlingensief production at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin to rave reviews. In Paris, she enjoyed success with a series of French roles including Manon, Micaëla, and Marguerite at both the Opéra Bastille, as well as the role of The Infantin in Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg and Ilia in Idomeneo at the Palais Garnier. She sang multiple productions of Elsa in Lohengrin and Katya in Janáček Katya Kabanova in Europe (Stuttgart, Warsaw, Basel, St. Gallen and Bern, Switzerland. and sang Manon in Bilbao and The Duchess of Parma in Busoni’s Faust in Seville.
Concert performances include The Messiah at Carnegie Hall, The Dallas Symphony and Ft. Lauderdale Symphony, a Gilbert and Sullivan evening at the Ravinia Festival, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater at the Chiemsee Festspiele, the world premiere of The Israeli Symphony by Gil Shohat in Haifa, Israel, Sechs Lieder von Das Marienleben by Hindemith and Maria Tryptichon by Frank Martin with the Bayrischer Rundfunk Orchestra as well as a concert and live commercial recording of Das Fürstenkind by Franz Lehár, also at the Bayrischer Rundfunk.
Among her numerous competitions and awards, she was a national winner of the Metropolitan National Council Auditions, a recipient of a Sullivan Role Preparation Grant, and was awarded the Maria Callas Debut Artist of the Year Award at Dallas Opera for her interpretation of Musetta, Washington Opera Singer of the Year for Floyd’s Susannah, Florida Grand Opera Singer of the Year for Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, and the Diva Award from Opera Company of Philadelphia for Floyd’s Susannah.
Photo by Simon Pauly
