Evelyn Pollock
Soprano
“Evelyn Pollock was a most impressive Gilda. Pollock has ample agility at the top. The wide leaps of Caro nome were taken effortlessly and squarely on note, but she also has the weight and color of the fuller lyric soprano, which added body both to her singing and to her character Pollock is a name to remember.”
– Star Tribune, Minneapolis
Lyric coloratura soprano Evelyn Pollock is one of America’s prominent emerging young artists, who opens the 2007-2008 season with her European debut as Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Staattheater St. Gallen, where she will also be heard as Micaela in Carmen and Aennchen in Der Frieschütz . Miss Pollock returns to the US as Roxanne in David DiChiera’s new opera Cyrano de Bergerac at the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Miss Pollock enjoyed a busy 2006-2007 season in which she was Musetta in La Bohème at the Kentucky Opera, returned to Palm Beach as Elvira in L’Italiana in Algeri, made role debuts as Nanetta in Falstaff in Philadelphia and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette in Detroit, and was at Carnegie Hall for Schubert’s Mass in G Major and two Mozart Regina Coelis .
In 2008-09 Miss Pollock will debut in Florida Grand Opera as Lakme, and will be Violetta in La traviata, Valenciene in Die Lustige Witwe, Clarice in Haydn's Il mondo della luna, and Zdenka in Arabella.
The summer of 2005 marked Miss Pollock's debut at the Wolf Trap Festival, where she sang Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Clorinda in La Cenerentola. In the 2005-06 season Miss Pollock debuted with Tulsa Opera in the role of Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and with the Palm Beach Opera as Norina in Don Pasquale. She has been heard with the National Symphony Orchestra and in The Latest Word Song Recital with pianist Steven Blier. Miss Pollock made her Santa Fe Opera debut in 2004 as Lisa in La Sonnambula. Said the LA Monitor: "Congratulations go to Evelyn Pollock, a fine singer in her own right, playing Lisa: Alternately jealous, seductive, and scheming, while constantly spinning a lovely, true bel canto sound. For her to stand so favorably next to such a world-class prima donna as Dessay is impressive indeed."
2003-04 was a busy season, adding six new roles to Miss Pollock's repertoire. As a Minnesota Opera Resident Artist, she earned rave reviews for her "crystalline voiced" Gilda in Rigoletto, "displaying the ideal combination of sweetness and vocal athleticism" (Pioneer Press). Opera News declared her "ideally ardent and attractive as Clara" in Sondheim's Passion, while The Wall Street Journal commended, " the beautiful Clara [was] sung with affecting voluptuousness by soprano Evelyn Pollock." Then, due to a last minute cancellation, Miss Pollock "took over and delivered an outstanding performance" (On the Purple Circuit) in the title role of Lucrezia Borgia opposite Bruce Ford's Gennaro. In addition to her main stage role as First Lady in Die Zauberfloete, Miss Pollock rounded out her tenure singing Pamina and Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia for Minnesota Opera Studio productions.
Miss Pollock was first heard at the Santa Fe Opera in 2003 as an Apprentice Artist, covering the title role in the world premiere of Bright Sheng's Madame Mao. She was also the only Apprentice selected to perform with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, alongside the composer, for Sheng's Three Chinese Love Songs. Her summer was completed with a performance as Ophelia in scenes from Thomas' Hamlet.
Miss Pollock was a member of the Merola Program of the San Francisco Opera, the Western Opera Theatre Tour, and has performed with the Colorado Symphony, Central City Opera, and the Accademia Verdiana in Busseto, Italy.
Having performed over 20 diverse operatic roles, Miss Pollock's ever-expanding repertory spans Italian personae (Lucrezia Borgia, Violetta, Lucia di Lammermoor, Gilda), French heroines (Juliette, Manon, Ophelia, Olympia), Mozart women (Zerlina, Despina, Susanna, Pamina, Madame Herz), sirens of operetta (Adele, Alice Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Mabel in Pirates of Penzance, Cunegonde in Candide), and modern characters (Abigail in The Crucible).
Her concert credits include soloist appearances in Handel's Messiah, Poulenc's Stabat Mater, Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras, Orff's Carmina Burana, Copland's In the Beginning, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass, and Bach's B Minor Mass. She has recently been heard in the opera broadcasts of Minnesota Public Radio and WRTI Philadelphia, and featured in a week-long Opera News web diary.
A native of Chicago, Miss Pollock received her training from the Academy of Vocal Arts, Indiana University in Bloomington, and Northwestern University. She is a District and Regional Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a second Place Winner of the Opera Index Competition and the Mario Lanza Competition, and a Grand Prize Winner of the Bel Canto Foundation and the National Society of Arts and Letters Competition.