Young soprano Rochelle Bard is rapidly becoming known for her exquisite, captivating performances and a voice gifted with a soaring top register and striking agility.
Rochelle Bard’s 2011/12 engagements include her role debut as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Utah Festival Opera where she also performs her Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow and as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem. The 2010/11 season saw Ms. Bard’s much anticipated return to Opera Tampa to sing Hanna Glawari under the baton of Maestro Coppola. During the 2009/10 season she performed the roles of Magda in La Rondine with Opera Tampa, Violetta in La Traviata with Music by the Lake, Musetta in La Bohème with Sacramento Opera, the Foreign Princess in Rusalka with Boston Lyric Opera, Gilda in Rigoletto with Rockland Opera, and Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow at St. Petersburg Opera Company.
In previous seasons, Ms. Bard has performed the title role of Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Idaho, Micaëla in Carmen with Ash Lawn Opera Festival and made her debut with Maestro Coppola as Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow at Altamura Center for the Arts. Other credits include Gilda in Rigoletto in concert with Cape Cod Opera, Mrs. Maurrant in Street Scene with Maine Grand Opera, Hanna Glawari with New England Light Opera, Louise in La Vie Parisienne with Opera Boston, Antonia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Longwood Opera, Cunegonde in Candide with the New England Conservatory of Music, and helped create the role of Juana in Rob Zuidam’s world premiere of the opera Rage d’Amours commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Rochelle Bard is a sought-after concert artist with recent performances of Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras, Poulenc’s Gloria, and Brahms’ Requiem.
Ms. Bard was an Artist in Residence at Opera San José from 2006-08, a Studio Artist with Baltimore Opera Company in 2005, and a Fellow at Tanglewood in 2003. She was awarded 1st Place in the 2007 Audience Choice in the Classical Singer Competition and 2nd Place in the 2009 Gerda Lissner Foundation Competition. She is a winner in the George London Competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards in San Francisco, and the Licia Albanese-Puccini Competition. As a competition winner, she made her debut at Lincoln Center in Alice Tully Hall for the Puccini Gala and in Carnegie Hall for the Gerda Lissner Winners Concert.
“La Canzone di Doretta” from Puccini’s La Rondine (2010)
“Vilja” from Lehár’s The Merry Widow (2010)
Bellini |
Mozart |
Bach - St. John Passion |
Mozart - Exsultate, jubilate, |
“Soprano Rochelle Bard, as the outraged Donna Anna, sang beautifully, with honed technique, legato phrasing and elegant tone.”
Robert Coleman, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 2011
“Stealing the scenes in which she performs, however, is Rochelle Bard, who portrays Donna Anna. From first appearance to her last, Bard is passionate and emotional and her soprano is full of pain and power. She is a heart-felt delight every time she opens her mouth. Her dynamics are particularly outstanding, from the softest whisper of pain to a strong declaration of revenge. She becomes the strength of the production.”
Jay Wamsley, USU STATEMAN, 2011
“Rochelle Bard is the rich widow being courted by Prince Danilo ... Bard revels in the glamorous mannerisms of the role, and her rendition of the folk song Vilja was a beauty.”
John Fleming, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 2010
“Rochelle Bard is playing Magda for the first time, and she is ravishing in ‘Chi il bel sogno,’ bringing color and tonal security to the shimmering high notes of the signature aria. Bard is a pleasure to hear.”
John Fleming, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 2010
“Rochelle Bard’s glorious (and might I add sensual) voice was fully warm tone on the bottom, all the way up to an amazingly light and heavenly spinning tone on the top. In fact, during her first aria in Act I, it seemed as if the entire theater was holding its breath. As if breathing would wake us up from this dream and disturb the effortless tones that Ms. Bard was sending out, floating up into the stratosphere.”
WWW.TAMPABAY.COM, 2010
“So how went the opera? Extremely well. The evening’s Violetta, Rochelle Bard, truly lived up to her billing as a great young singing actress.”
Jim Edwards, CHICAGO TRIBUNE LOCAL EDITION, 2010
“The cast was a vocally outstanding one. Rochelle Bard is a lovely woman and a fine actress. Her soprano voice could handle well the juxtaposition of dramatic and lyric singing that the role of Violetta demands.”
John Barker, THE WELL-TEMPERED WORD PRESS, 2010
“Rochelle Bard, looking like the pretty ‘mean girl’ Veronica from Archie, vamped up an enjoyable storm as the Foreign Princess.”
David Shengold, THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER, March 2009
