About this Artist
American mezzo-soprano NANCY MAULTSBY is in demand by opera companies and orchestras throughout the world. Her unique vocal timbre and insightful musicianship allow her to pursue a repertoire extending from the operas of Monteverdi and Handel to recent works by John Adams. She regularly performs the major heroines of 19th-century French, Italian, and German opera and the great symphonic works.
Maultsby’s operatic career has included a wide range of roles in some of the world’s most prestigious houses. She has performed often with Lyric Opera of Chicago, where she appeared as Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried, as well as the First Norn and Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, all conducted by Zubin Mehta. She also sang La Cieca in La Gioconda there conducted by Bruno Bartoletti and Pauline in Pique Dame conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, both of which opened the company’s season. She appeared as Erda in both Das Rheingold and Siegfried and Waltraute in Götterdämmerung in the new Stephen Wadsworth Ring cycle with Seattle Opera. Maultsby has sung Fricka at Stuttgart Opera; Jocasta in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex in Naples, Rome, Dresden, and Athens; Charlotte, Carmen, and Orlovsky at Seattle Opera; Maddalena at the Netherlands Opera; Amneris with Minnesota Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Palm Beach Opera, and at the National Theater Athens; Ottavia in Athens; Cornelia in Giulio Cesare at Florida Grand Opera and Opera Colorado; Maddalena at the Netherlands Opera; and Adalgisa in Genoa. Other operatic engagements have included productions of Die Ägyptische Helena at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden (under Christian Thielemann); Carmen at San Francisco Opera and Pittsburgh Opera; and productions at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe Opera.
A recent addition to her repertoire is Judith in Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, which she sang in the acclaimed Robert Lepage production for her debut at the Opéra de Montréal, where she subsequently returned as Amneris. Maultsby begins the 2008/09 season in Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand” with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, followed by Janácek’s “Glagolitic Mass” with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra, both at Severance Hall and at Carnegie Hall.