Brava and best wishes, Margaret Gawrysiak!

This afternoon’s performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be mezzo soprano Margaret Gawrysiak’s last appearance at Seattle Opera...for a little while, at least! Margaret sings Hippolita in this weekend’s Midsummers (Rose Beattie takes over the role next weekend) and then dashes off to begin rehearsals of L’enfant et les sortilèges/Gianni Schicchi at Opera Company of Philadelphia, where she’s making her debut in the same roles she sang for Seattle Opera’s YAP last season: Mère/Tasse/Pâtre/Libellule and Zita. (Above, Margaret as Zita, surrounded by her oddball relatives, menaces the Schicchi of Michael McGee.) You can find more information about Opera Philly’s production HERE.


Margaret is finishing up her second year with Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Program. Her warm, rich, mezzo, thrillingly easy high notes, and fearless stage presence have made her a favorite with our audiences in such roles as Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti (left), Olga in Tatyana’s Letter, Mother and the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, and (in our adaptations of Wagner’s Ring operas for children) Flosshilde the Rhinedaughter, Rossweisse the Valkyrie, Fafner the construction worker and giant dragon puppet-head...


...and of course Erda the earth goddess (right, with Thomas Forde as Wotan). I’ll never forget Maggie’s performance as Enfant’s teacup, singing its demented pidgin-French Chinese gobbledygook and dancing the foxtrot with Noah Baetge’s teacup—-a definitive performance, and I can only hope they’ll be able to reach such heights of delicious lunacy in Philadelphia!

Above, Margaret Gawrysiak as Maman, in L'enfant, greets David Korn as the Child and Elizabeth Pojanowski as the wounded Squirrel.