Christine Lyons
SOPRANO
"Norma was Maria Callas' favorite showcase for her legendary voice. Renata Scotto once called the role of Norma 'the Everest of opera.' Well, Soprano Christine Lyons climbs that peak with banners flying. She's a true virtuosa, dazzling us with her mastery of all those Bel Canto coloratura fireworks- all the runs, trills and staccato arpeggios and cadenzas that decorate the long, free-ranging melody lines."
Broadway World
BIO
Christine Lyons (she/her) is a critically acclaimed soprano who has been hailed a “true virtuosa” by Broadway World, exclaimed a “revelation” by Gay City News, and praised for her “potent soprano” by Opera Magazine. This upcoming season, Lyons will sing the title role in Handel's Agrippina with Florida Grand Opera and The Governess in Britten's haunted The Turn of the Screw with IlluminArts Miami.
In 2021, Lyons opened The Shed in New York with Kelsey Lu’s opera This is a Test, re-joined Will Crutchfield for Teatro Nuovo’s digital presentation of The Complete Recordings of Giuseppe Verdi, returned to Baltimore Concert Opera, Lyric Fest, and Mohonk Mountain for a series of concerts, and curated a live-streamed recital of art songs she titled The Art of Perseverance inclusive of Black, queer and female artists for the Gelman Concert Series with River City Opera.
As well, Lyons joined City University of New York’s From the Voice Of series for a talk on Equity and Action, and served as a judge for the 2021 Miss America New York Scholarship Competition.
Lyons has performed leading opera roles at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall, and most recently starred as Bellini’s Norma at Winter Opera St. Louis , Bellini’s La Straniera at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Verdi’s Leonora in Il Trovatore at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with Baltimore Concert Opera. Other engagements of the 2019-20 season were to include the title role in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena with dell’Arte Opera Ensemble.
A highly-decorated competitor, Lyons is the first African-American woman to win the Grand Prize in the Mary Trueman Art Song Vocal Competition in New York, and her debut as Norma garnered the Outstanding Achievement in Opera award nomination from the 2020 St. Louis Theater Circle.
Her artistry has been celebrated in such publications as Opera News, The New York Times, Musical America Worldwide, Bachtrak, Operawire, The Wall Street Journal, St. Louis Today, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, New York Classical Review and The Boston Music Intelligencer.
