Barbara Staffen Mezzo Soprano

Mezzo-soprano Barbara Staffen is happy to return to Center Stage Opera as La Cieca in La Gioconda. Previous CSO appearances include Azucena (Il trovatore) and Adalgisa (Norma). Originally from Chicago, lllinois, Barbara began her professional singing career touring and recording with the Lira Singers, a group dedicated to promoting Polish music and culture.

Among her opera roles performed to date are Katisha (The Mikado), Gertrude (Roméo et Juliette), Marcellina (Le nozze di Figaro), La Zia Principessa (Suor Angelica), Madame Larina (Eugene Onegin), the Duchess (The Gond oliers), the Witch (Hansel and Gretel) the Sorceress (Dido and Aeneas), and Carmen. Solo concert work includes Bach’s Magnificat, Handel’s Messiah, Judas Maccabeus, and Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio, and the Mozart Requiem.

Now based in New York City, recent NYC appearances include Marcellina (Le nozze di Figaro) and Enrichetta di Francia (I Puritani) with Opera Company of Brooklyn, Alto Soloist in Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, NJ and the Bach B Minor Mass with the Musica Bella Orchestra.

She made concert appearances performing Granados’ Tonadillas at The Town Hall, and the Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer as part of the SGI-USA Concert Series. She also performed a recital in her hometown of Chicago of songs my Mahler, Debussy, and Granados. In February 2007 she played the Countess in Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama with West Bay Opera in Palo Alto, CA. Of her performance, Keith Kreitman of the San Mateo County Times raved of her “rich and lyrical mezzo-soprano” and “ability to dominate the stage with her well-paced dramatic presence.”

November, 2006 marked her professional international debut in Fukushima, Japan in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Yamagata Symphony. Other recent engagements include Cecily (La Divina, Pasatieri) and Dritte Dame (Die Zauberflöte) with the Opera Company of Brooklyn.

For more information, please visit www.barbarastaffen.com