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. This summer, she was Aïda at the 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. Mary Elizabeth begins the 2024/2025 season at Canadian Opera Company, reprising her celebrated interpretation of Abigaille in Nabucco.

Ms. Williams made a 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.

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. She now lives in Milan with her husband, tenor Lorenzo Decaro.

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Mary Elizabeth Williams is represented by ArteMIS worldwide.