Arizona Opera Cast Members & Creatives

Audrey Babcock is an award-winning mezzo-soprano who has gained notoriety for her commanding, powerful performances as Carmen and her dark, hypnotic portrayals of Maddalena in Rigoletto. Ms. Babcock made her French debut as Carmen with the Festival Lyrique-en-Mer and has performed the role with Florentine Opera, Nashville Opera, Florida Grand Opera, New York City Opera, San Antonio Opera, Knoxville Opera, Opera Delaware, Toledo Opera, Anchorage Opera, Dayton Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Mill City Summer Opera, and Utah Festival Opera where The Salt Lake Tribune wrote “Audrey Babcock's performance as Carmen was a spellbinding tour de force...from the moment she took the stage her self-assured characterization was mesmerizing ...Babcock's caramel-hued mezzo was a pleasure…her supple tones caressed the notes, radiating earthy allure.”

Widely recognized as a choice singer for new works, Ms. Babcock has premiered several new operas including Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin (NY Premiere - Dicapo Opera), With Blood, With Ink (World Premiere - Fort Worth Opera), La Reina (American Lyric Theater, NY & Prototype Festival), The Poe Project (American Lyric Theater), and appeared as Mother in Winter’s Tale with Beth Morrison’s Prototype Festival in NYC in 2015. Last season’s engagements included the title role in The Tragedy of Carmen with Opera Santa Barbara as well as a cancelled concert with the Santa Barbara Symphony. Ms. Babcock’s engagements for the 2021-2022 season include Lily; her life, his music with Marble City Opera, Toledo in The Falling and the Rising with Opera Carolina, Verdi’s Requiem with the Reading Symphony Orchestra, and the title role in Carmen and Aldonza in The Man of La Mancha with Utah Festival Opera.

Recent engagements have included her Seattle Opera debut as Baroness Nica in Yardbird, bringing her show Beyond Carmen to Opera Delaware, Maddalena (Rigoletto) with Palm Beach Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Omaha, Tulsa Opera, Florentine Opera and Nashville Opera, where Broadway World wrote “Mezzo-soprano Audrey Babcock, as the manipulative and cunning Maddalena, very nearly steals the show in her third act appearance, giving audiences a mere glimpse of what we can expect from her Carmen. . . She gives a stunningly full-throated performance of the sexy and sensuous Maddalena and the senses reel in anticipation of her Carmen.” Ms. Babcock portrayed title role in Maria de Buenos Aires (San Diego Opera), Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible (Opera Santa Barbara) Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (New Orleans Opera), Aldonza in The Man of La Mancha (Utah Opera), Mrs. Mister in Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock (Opera Saratoga), Erika in Vanessa (Sarasota Opera), Suzuki in Madama Butterfly (Opera Santa Barbara and Tulsa Opera), and Jo in Little Women with Utah Opera and Syracuse Opera, where she won Artist of the Year. She played the Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte with Spoleto Festival, USA, and the Secretary in Menotti’s The Consul (Long Beach Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, and New Jersey Opera). She has also sung Dorabella in Così fan tutte (Opera Idaho), Lola in Cavalleria rusticana (Utah Festival Opera and Washington Concert Opera), The Third Lady in The Magic Flute (Opera Pacific), Flora in La traviata (Cincinnati Opera), and Carmen in The Tragedy of Carmen (Opera Delaware, Opera on the James, and Florida Grand Opera). She has performed with New York City Opera, Seattle Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Dallas Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, and The New World Symphony and was also featured in a televised concert of Russian music with world-renowned singer, Regina Resnik.

Her concert and recital engagements include Verdi’s Requiem (Dayton Symphony, Charleston Symphony and West Virginia Symphony), Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Eugene Symphony Orchestra), Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica), Viva Verdi! (Mobile Opera), Murder and other Operatic Mayhem (National Symphony Orchestra), and Where the Boys Are with musical director, Steven Blier. Musical Theater works include Aldonza/Dulcinea in Man of La Mancha with Shreveport Opera, Lyric Opera of San Diego and Utah Festival Opera, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (Wolf Trap Opera) and the music of Kurt Weill with the World Premier of Lily; her life, his music (Dicapo Opera), a one-woman fictional melodrama written and produced by Ms. Babcock. She is the recipient numerous awards including “Artist of the Year” for her portrayal of Jo in Mark Adamo’s Little Women (Syracuse Opera), the George London Award, the Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation award, and the Opera Index and Sullivan Foundation Encouragement Award. Recording under the name Aviva, Ms. Babcock has released an album of Ladino pieces called Songs for Carmen, a collection of works sung in Ladino and Arabic, inspired by the character Carmen.