Jacalyn Kreitzer

Mezzo-Soprano Jacalyn Kreitzer began her professional career with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She sang leading roles in Europe for many years, including Brangane with Montserrat Caballe and Peter Schneider in Teatro del Liceu, Erda with Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Fricka with Chatelet Opera Paris and Jeffrey Tate. She was with the Metropolitan Opera for four seasons, and can be heard as Rossweisse and Waltraute in “Die Walkure” with Deutsche Grammaphon, James Levine conducting.

Ms. Kreitzer has performed with some of the world’s great opera houses and symphonies, including New York City Opera, Barcelona, Spoleto, Geneva, Chicago Lyric, San Francisco Opera, Dublin Grand, Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Seattle Opera, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Kansas City, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, Prague National Symphony, Pasadena, and the Kronos, American, Mendelssohn and Sequioa String Quartets. Her colleagues on stage have included Matti Salminen, Marti Talvela, Thomas Hampson, Frederica von Stade, Christa Ludwig, Hannah Schwarz, Debra Voight, Jessye Norman, William Johns, Rene Kollo, Siegfried Jerusalem, Montserrat Caballe, Eva Marton, Leonie Rysanek, Dame Gwendolyn Jones, Susan Graham and James Morris. She has performed over 40 operatic roles, including Erda, Fricka, Waltraute, Norns, Azucena, Amneris, Ulrica, Vitellia, Sosostris, Ericlea, Princess Bulkonskaya, Brangane and the Contessa in Adriana LeCouvreur.

In her Carnegie Hall debut, Ms. Kreitzer sang Brangaene in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symphony and she recorded the “Mother” in Gian-Carlo Menotti’s “The Consul” in Spoleto, Italy for Chandos (directed by Menotti) conducted by Richard Hicox. In Prague she sang Verdi’s Requiem and the Bach Magnificat with Prague Radio Symphony, James DePreist and Tamas Vasary conducting. Recent engagements and future engagements include “Jocasta” in Stravinsky’s”Oedipus Rex” with Leonid Grin and the San Jose Symphony, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Hermann Michael in Phoenix, Prokoviev’s “Alexander Nevsky” with Fresno Philahrmonic, and the contralto solo “O Mensch” in Mahler’s 3rd symphony in Phoenix, , mezzo soloist in Duruffle’s “Requiem”, Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer” with Maestro Bruno Ferrandis and in recital in Kyoto Japan’s Barocksaal Hall. Her “Kreitzer/Davies/Nagano trio performed in Carnegie’s Weill Hall, with works for mezzo, cello and piano. Ms. Kreitzer was mezzo soloist with the Colorado Mahlerfest, in Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand”.

Ms. Kreitzer is the Vocal Consultant for OperaSLO, a teacher of Applied Voice at Cal Poly State University, where she emphasizes classical voice and vocology. She is the Founder & Producer of Cal Poly Student Opera Theatre, collaborating with OperaSLO. She has produced master classes that have featured Marilyn Horne, Jubilant Sykes, Frederica von Stade, Rod Gilfry, Juliana Gondek, and Erik Stein, Casting Director for PCPA. Ms. Kreitzer was recently selected as one of five honorees devoted to “Excellence in the Arts” in San Luis Obispo County, and is the recipient of a “Grammy Excellence in Teaching Award”, as one of 200 of 7000 quarterfinalists.