Carnegie Hall+

Award-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has captivated audiences in a variety of venues, from the Metropolitan Opera to Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Known for her versatility across stage, screen, recital halls, and arenas, she has made a significant impact at Carnegie Hall, including headlining more than two dozen programs, curating a multi-year Perspectives series, and leading a series of beloved master classes for rising opera singers. Experience the renowned vocalist’s exceptional talent and artistry on Carnegie Hall+.

The sixth of seven children in an Irish American family, Joyce Flaherty was born in 1969 in Prairie Village, Kansas. Despite an early interest in musical theater, she discovered her passion for opera at Wichita State University, where she first studied to be a high school music teacher at the Academy of Vocal Arts. After winning several vocal competitions, she launched her professional opera career in the late 1990s.

From the start, DiDonato’s eclectic taste in musical styles has been her trademark. She believes opera is about “bringing truth and beauty and astonishment to people,” she told The New York Times—a philosophy evident in her broad choice of repertoire, from the titular role in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Elena in Rossini’s La donna del lago to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. On Carnegie Hall+, subscribers can enjoy a more comedic side of her talent in a Barcelona production of Rossini’s Cinderella alongside magnetic tenor Juan Diego Flórez.

Often billed as a coloratura mezzo-soprano, DiDonato’s voice vaults over octaves and evokes deep emotion with ease. Following a 2013 performance of Rossini’s challenging cantata Giovanna d’Arco at Carnegie Hall, critic Alex Ross praised her agility and emotional depth, noting, “Such music requires agility in ornaments, trills, and rapid-fire runs. DiDonato executes these figures with such purposeful precision that they take on emotional weight, becoming structure rather than décor. There is a warmth in the voice that can intensify into fire.”

In performances like the virtuosic aria “Tanti affetti in tal momento” from La donna del lago, the pyrotechnic vocal skills can feel almost frenzied. Yet, even in these moments, DiDonato approaches her work with a reverence and depth that transforms each rendition into a profound emotional moment. “It’s not just for the sake of being impressive,” she explained to Ross. “It’s such a wafty, fine, silver-spun web of a line. It’s something shivering inside of you. The closer to perfection I can get it, the more thrilling it can be.”

But thrills and theatricality can often give way to a yearning for thought. DiDonato is equally celebrated for her scholarly approach to recital programs and master classes, which form the bedrock of her partnership with Carnegie Hall. Alongside performing with renowned ensembles and conductors, she has curated two of the Hall’s Perspectives series, led annual master classes for young opera singers in the Resnick Education Wing, and worked alongside middle school students as part of the Count Me In program. She has also contributed to the Hall’s Lullaby Project as well as the Musical Connections program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

DiDonato has also pioneered conceptual programs with Il Pomo d’Oro under Maxim Emelyanychev. Her three-year tour of In War and Peace, conceived in response to the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, merged singing and choreography for a ceremony that juxtaposed themes of conflict and serenity with Baroque works by Handel, Cavalieri, and Purcell. The concert was filmed live at the Liceu Theatre in Barcelona in June 2017 and is available to Carnegie Hall+ subscribers.

“They feel like family, a musical family for sure,” DiDonato told Carnegie Hall about her ongoing partnership with Il Pomo d’Oro. “Each time we perform together, it feels new and fresh.”

DiDonato is also joined by Il Pomo d’Oro and Emelyanychev in Eden in Olympia, performing a period-trotting set list that spans Gluck to Gustav Mahler to Rachel Portman. Directed by Olivier Simonnet, the program was based on her acclaimed 2022 concept album and world tour (that included a stop at Carnegie Hall in April 2022), and its concert film places DiDonato in Greece days before the torch ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics with children’s choirs from Greece and France.

Eden in Olympia serves as a pressing reminder of ecological responsibility, paying tribute to humanity’s complex relationship with the natural world and delivering a powerful message of unity and renewal, capturing the very essence of her artistry. “I get completely overwhelmed if I’m trying to solve world peace or climate change,” she told The New York Times on the eve of her Eden performance at Carnegie Hall. “But when I do little things, I’ve come to believe that it’s really the only way forward.”

Photography: Eden in Olympia by Stephan Talneau, Rossini’s Cinderella by Toni Bofill, Joyce DiDonato Master Class by Chris Lee, Musical Connections by Fadi Kheir and Stephanie Berger, In War and Peace by A. Bofill, Eden in Olympia by Cate Pisaroni.