About

Hailed as a “lush voiced mezzo-soprano,” Melissa Fajardo was last seen as a tempting Maddalena in Verdi’s, Rigoletto, with the Crested Butte Music Festival. This upcoming 2016-17 season brings Ms.Fajardo to Miami, FL where she joins the Florida Grand Opera as a Young Artist. She will make her debut with FGO in Tchaikovsky’s, Eugene Onegin as Filipievna and will again be on the mainstage in the spring as The Sea, in Jorge Martin’s Before Night Falls. Ms. Fajardo will also be covering the roles of Carmen, Olga in Eugene Onegin, and Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera.

Last season held three debuts for Ms. Fajardo. She made her European debut as a soloist in her first Verdi Requiem in the cities of Mainz, Trier, and Mosel. She then began her residency with the Tulsa Opera as a Studio Artist, and made her Lincoln Center debut with the New York City Ballet as a soloist in their performance of Balanchine’s, Liebesliederwaltzer by Brahms.

In the 2014-15 season, Ms. Fajardo was a Portland Opera Resident Artist and performed the roles of The Page in Salome, Alisa in Lucia di Lammermoor, Lady with a Hat Box/Foreign Singer in Postcard from Morocco, and as Kate in The Pirates of Penzance. In addition to performing Maddalena at the 2014 Crested Butte Music Festival, Ms. Fajardo had the pleasure of covering La Zia Principessa, in Suor Angelica as a Marcello Giordani Young Artist. Ms. Fajardo is a former Gerdine Young Artist where she covered the role of Kathy Hagan in Terrence Blanchard’s jazz opera, Champion. Other recent performances include Mother from Stravinsky’s, Mavra and a premiere of Edward Cone’s, The Duchess of Malfi, with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. She also performed the role of Marguerite in Louise by Charpentier at Spoleto Festival USA. Ms. Fajardo has also performed the with the Brevard Music Festival as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and at Opera North in the musical theater role of Bloody Mary from South Pacific.

Ms. Fajardo holds a Master of Music in Voice Performance and Literature from The Eastman School of Music where she performed the title role in The Rape of Lucretia and was a soloist in the Kennedy Center’s, Conservatory Project. At Eastman, Ms. Fajardo won the Friends of Eastman Opera Competition and was awarded the Lynn Clarke Vocal Prize. While receiving her Bachelor of Music from Westminster Choir College, Ms. Fajardo performed Genevieve in Pelleas et Melisande and was awarded first place in the school’s voice scholarship competition. Ms. Fajardo has also received an Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan National Council Auditions.