Janice Edwards
Mezzo-Soprano
Janice Edwards’s artistic versatility serves her well in a repertoire encompassing the principal Wagner and Verdi heroines as well as the major oratorios of Bach, Handel, Rossini, Verdi, and Mahler. Ms. Edwards has performed numerous recitals in the U.S., Denmark and the Czech Republic, with a repertoire ranging from standard to contemporary.
Significant successes have included her internationally acclaimed portrayal of Fricka in Arizona Opera's Der Ring des Nibelungen, the first-ever Ring to be presented in the American Southwest.
Since moving to New Hampshire in 1999, Ms. Edwards has sung regularly with Granite State Opera. GSO roles include The Mother (Amahl and the Night Visitors), Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro), Mama Lucia (Cavalleria Rusticana) and Suzuki (Madama Butterfly).
Janice as Suzuki, Sherry Zannoth as Butterfly, Kentucky Opera’s Madama Butterfly, 1977
Ms. Edwards has appeared with Arizona Opera, Connecticut Grand Opera, Kentucky Opera, Georgia Opera, New Hampshire Music Festival, Collegiate Chorale and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In Europe, she has performed with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dvořák Summer Music Festival, Orchestra of the State Theatre of Prague, Karlsbad Symphony Orchestra, Košice (Slovakia) Symphony Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic, Ostrava Philharmonic, Danish Sinfonietta and the Nielsen String Quartet.
Recent engagements have included the role of Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana with Pioneer Valley Symphony; Vocal Masters, a solo recital at First Music in Nashua, NH; the role of Maria Aegyptiaca in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Nashua and Lexington Symphony Orchestras; and the roles of Sieglinde, Fricka and Second Norn in Longwood Opera’s Tales from Der Ring des Nibelungen, an abbreviated treatment of Wagner’s famous cycle of four operas.
Granite State Opera, Le Nozze di Figaro (2004) - Janice Edwards as Marcellina, Dan Sullivan as Bartolo, Sharon Daniels stage director.
Other new England appearances have included numerous performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Keene Chamber Orchestra, Pioneer Valley Symphony, Portland Symphony, NH Music Festival and Monadnock Chorus); A Child of Our Time with the Manchester Choral Society; Love, American Style – an Evening of American Love Songs at the Dvořák Summer Music Festival in Prague, Czech Republic; Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette with the Portland Symphony; Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the NH Symphony; Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Monadnock Chorus; and Farewell, Vienna, a play with music about the life of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, with the Willamette Concert Opera in Portland, OR. In 2008, she sang the role of Lady Mountchessington in the world premiere of Eric Sawyer’s opera Our American Cousin with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project at Amherst College.
