Mary Elizabeth Williams made her debut in Nabucco with Canadian Opera Company in the 2024/2025 season, reprising her celebrated interpretation of Abigaille in Nabucco to great critical acclaim. Her captivating performance in the virtuosic role was nominated for a DORA award. Last season, Mary Elizabeth was also honored to originate the title role in Dédé’s recently rediscovered nineteenth century French opera Morgiane with Opera Lafayette and Opera Créole co-producing a four-city tour. A live recording commemorating these historic performances will be released as an album in the Autumn of 2025.

In the 2025/2026 season, Mary Elizabeth shows her impressive artistic range by making her baroque opera debut as Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with Opera Lafayette in the USA and originating the role of Athena in Iain Bell’s new opera Medusa with Theatre La Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium. Ms. Williams will also make her directorial debut with Opera Baltimore this season, leading their production of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia.

In the 2023/2024 season, Mary Elizabeth Williams debuted at Santa Fe Opera as the Foreign Princess in Rusalka and joined the cast of Un Ballo in Maschera at the Metropolitan Opera. Other recent engagements include Isolde in Tristan und Isolde both at Seattle Opera and in Peter Sellars’s production at Paris Opera. She collaborated again with Sellars in her debut with San Francisco Symphony in June 2024 with Schoenberg’s Erwartung. Sellars’ production, under the baton of Essa-Pekka Salonen, was a triumph both with audiences and critics alike. In the Summer of 2024, She was Aïda at the Sordevolo Summer Festival with Teatro Coccia in Novara, Italy. Aïda is a role she has performed often and to great acclaim in cities across the globe, with theaters including Atlanta Opera, Cincinnati Opera, and Teatro Massimo di Palermo. Ms. Williams is scheduled to perform Aïda again in the United States in the 2026/27 Season.

Ms. Williams made her house debut at Theater an der Wien as Serena in Porgy and Bess, a role she has also sung at many theaters including Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Seattle Opera, and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg (live radio broadcast). Other recent role debuts include Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, which she sang at Teatro Pergolesi in Jesi and Teatro Coccia in Novara, Italy. Her distinguished and fruitful career has taken her to many important theaters in leading and title roles, including Opéra de Dijon, Opéra de Lille, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Welsh National Opera, and Deutsche Oper am Rhein, as well as with the Atlanta Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, and France’s Festival St. Denis. Her repertoire includes Norma, Tosca, Lady Macbeth, Elisabetta (Maria Stuarda), La Wally, Adriana Lecouvreur and Chimène (Le Cid). Mary Elizabeth prioritizes the expansion her artistic and vocal range, taking on new and exciting challenges season after season.

Originally from Philadelphia, Ms. Williams graduated from Luther College in Iowa, after which she joined Seattle Opera’s Young Artist Program. She made her Seattle mainstage debut as Leonora in Il Trovatore and in 2012 won the Artist of the Year title, determined by the Seattle audience. She was a member of Centre de Formation Lyrique at the Paris Opera, where she won the Lyric Artist prize and was also awarded first prize in the Concours Clermont-Ferrand. A multi-faceted artist and champion for vocal performance, Mary Elizabeth is a sought-after teacher of vocal technique and role preparation, and leads masterclasses and intensive courses in Europe and the United States on a regular basis. A gifted writer, Ms. Williams’ poetry is the basis of a new song cycle by celebrated Norwegian composer Gisle Kverndokk. Her original translation of Schoenberg’s Erwartung is featured at this Summer’s Salzburger Festspeiele. In June 2025, Mary Elizabeth was appointed the Imasogie Executive Apprentice at Opera Baltimore for the 2025/2026 season in acknowledgement of her exemplary artistic vision and leadership potential. She lives in Milan with her husband, tenor Lorenzo Decaro.

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Mary Elizabeth Williams is represented by ArteMIS worldwide.