Claire McCahan • Mezzo Soprano
American mezzo soprano Claire McCahan has been praised for her appealing and warm tone that has all the right colors. Ms. McCahan’s recent operatic credits include the title role in Handel’s Ariodante, Third Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Prince Orlofsky in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus (Eklund Opera) as well as Brittomara in the workshop performance of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s If I Were You (CU NOW). Recent concert appearances include performances of Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Longmont Symphony and the Cantabile Ensemble of Boulder, and Mozart’s Requiem with the CU-Boulder choruses and orchestra. Ms. McCahan received 5th place in the 2018 Denver Lyric Opera Guild competition and a 2018 Career Advancement Award from Opera of the Rockies. A member of the Eklund Opera Theater singers, she has performed with the group at local schools and at other outreach events. Ms. McCahan has also been a performer and stage director in CU’s Opera Scenes program where she sang Romeo in Bellini’s l Capuleti e i Montecchi and Lucreita in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. Additionally, Ms. McCahan has performed with Intermountain Opera Bozeman productions of Romeo et Juliette, La Traviata, as Cousin Hebe in H.M.S Pinafore, Antonia in Man of La Mancha, and La Maestra delle Novizie in Suor Angelica. Interested in new music and collaboration, she has been involved with the premiere of new works at both the undergraduate and graduate level. With the CU New Opera Workshops, she has performed the role of Euodia in Mark Adamo’s The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and most recently she created the role of Brittomara in Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s new opera If I Were You.
Ms. McCahan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire and master’s degree from the University of Colorado Boulder.