about MAIRE Therese
biography
BIOGRAPHY.
American mezzo-soprano Maire Therese Carmack, Third Prize winner at the 2022 Operalia World Opera Competition, has been praised by Opera News for her "deep mezzo and vibrant metallic timbre" and for "taking focus by her very presence."
Maire Therese's 2024/25 season includes house debuts with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Rigoletto (Giovanna/Maddalena cover) and Houston Grand Opera in Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves (Dodo McNeill). She will also return to The Metropolitan Opera for The Magic Flute - Holiday Presentation (Second Lady). In concert, Maire Therese makes debuts with the Santa Fe Symphony as Marguerite in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust, the Oregon Bach Festival and San Antonio Philharmonic as the alto soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, with Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras as Princess Eboli in Verdi's Don Carlo, and with UF Symphony Orchestra as alto soloist in Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.
Maire Therese joined The Metropolitan Opera for the 2023/24 season as a member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. She covered Fenena in Nabucco, made her debut in The Magic Flute (Second Lady), and was featured in Madama Butterfly (Kate Pinkerton). She also made her San Francisco Opera debut in Die Zauberflöte (Dritte Dame) and returned to Deutsche Oper Berlin to reprise Der Missmut in Rued Langgaard’s rarely performed Antikrist which will be released on DVD in a collaboration with NAXOS.
The 2022/23 season marked Maire Therese's European debut with Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she opened the season in the title role of Carmen as part of the company's Cultural Summer Festival. During her year-long tenure with the company, she was seen in Don Quichotte (Dulcinée), Rigoletto (Giovanna/Maddalena), Die Zauberflöte (Dritte Dame), Lucia di Lammermoor (Alisa), Manon Lescaut (Singer), Salome (Page), and Antikrist (Der Missmut). She also had debuts with Santa Fe Opera as a member of the Apprentice Artist Program, singing Mercédès in Carmen and performing as a soloist in the world premiere of David Henry Hwang and Huang Ruo's M. Butterfly 蝴蝶君, with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as alto soloist in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and with the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra as alto soloist in Bach’s Matthäus-Passion under the baton of Christoph Koncz.
a beautiful
sound filled with
attractive charm.
Previously, Maire Therese performed the role of Prima Donna in the world premiere of Philip Blackburn’s multimedia hyper-opera The Sun Palace, which became a 60-minute Indie film that premiered at New York’s Anthology Film Archives. She also created the role of Mezzosopran in the world premiere of Arne Gieshoff and Franziska Angerer’s Bär*in at the Deutche Oper Berlin’s Tischlerei. Additional credits include Eugene Onegin (Olga and Larina), Così fan tutte (Dorabella), Semele (Juno), Hänsel und Gretel (Witch/Mother), Celeste (Songbird), Die Fledermaus (Prinz Orlofski), L’incoronazione di Poppea (Ottavia), La fille du régiment (Marquise of Berkenfield), Suor Angelica (La Zelatrice), La traviata (Flora), The Barber of Seville (Berta), Charlie Parker’s Yardbird (Baroness Nica), and Light in the Piazza (Margaret Johnson).
Maire Therese is an alum of the Palm Beach Opera Bailey Apprentice Artist Program, the Glimmerglass Festival Young Artists Program, the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers, and the Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artist Program. She is the winner of the Björn Eklund Scholarship from The Opera Foundation (2022), first prize winner of the Gerda Lissner Lieder and Song Competition (2023), winner of Opera Index's Felix Popper Award (2023), two-time grant recipient from The Olga Forrai Foundation for Dramatic Voices (2023/2024), and second prize winner of the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition (2024). Maire Therese holds a Master of Music in Voice Performance and Literature (with honors) from the Eastman School of Music, as well as Bachelor of Arts degrees in both Philosophy and Visual and Performing Arts (summa cum laude) from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.