BIOGRAPHY
Australian mezzo-soprano Melissa Gregory, a Welsh National Opera Associate Artist for the 23/24 season, is the recipient of the Opera Foundation for Young Australians’ 2024 Lady Fairfax La Scala Award. She was the winner of the 2023 Bampton Classical Opera Young singer of the year, the LCS Leach award for singing, a finalist in the 2022 International Handel Singing Competition, an award winner in the 2021 JSRB Bel Canto Award and 2nd Prize winner in the Joyce and Michael Kennedy Award for the Singing of Strauss. Melissa is also a Samling Artist.
For the 23/24 WNO season Melissa performed the roles of Margarita Xirgu Ainadamar (Cover) and Dorabella Cosi fan tutte (Cover). Melissa was a soloist in Play Opera Live!, Opera Favourites and performed in an Associate Artist recital with Scottish pianist Malcom Martineau.
For the 22/23 Season Melissa joined the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Tour chorus and performed the role of Soer St. Charles in the festival’s critically-acclaimed production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. She returns this summer to perform the role of Praskowia in Lehár’s The Merry Widow.
Other operatic engagements include Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro (RNCM), Der Komponist and Dryade in R. Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (RNCM and LGNOS), Fox Goldenmane in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen (RNCM), Orlofsky in Die Flederamus (Lyric Opera Studio Weimar), Hansel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Dritte Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Florence Pike in Britten’s Albert Herring (Queensland Conservatorium) and Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Musica Antiqua Collegii).
On the concert platform, Melissa recently performed in a London Handel Festival Finalists Recital at the Charterhouse in the Barbican. She has also performed the mezzo-soprano solos in the Verdi Requiem as part of the Noosa Chorale’s Silver Anniversary Year Celebration, broadcast on radio in Australia and overseas. Other highlights include Beethoven’s 9th Symphony QCGU), J.S Bach’s Magnificat, Schubert Magnificat in C D486, Beethoven Mass in C Op.8 and Mozart’s Requiem (Queensland Choir).
Additionally, Melissa performed as a soloist in the critically-acclaimed premiere of Opera Queensland’s Mozart Airborne in collaboration with Expressions Dance Company, nominated for two Helpmann awards including Best Dance Production.
During her time at the Royal Northern College of Music under the tutelage of Susan Roper and Elizabeth Ritchie, Melissa completed her PG Dip in Advanced Musical Studies with Distinction and received 2nd prize in the Joyce and Michael Kennedy Award for the Singing of Strauss. She was also the winner of the prestigious Annie Ridyard Award, the Peter Heath Award and the James and Mary Glass Scholarship.
As a keen music educator, Melissa holds a Bachelor of Music in Performance (Classical Voice) with First Class Honours, under the tutelage of Dr. Margaret Schindler and Glenn Winslade, and a Master of Music Studies in Vocal Pedagogy with Distinction from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music.
Melissa’s other accolades include being the proud recipient of the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Programme 10th Anniversary Grant Initiative as well as the Elizabeth Muir Postgraduate Prize and the Linda Edith Allen Postgraduate Prize at the Queensland Conservatorium. She was awarded the Lynette Casey-Brereton award at the National Liederfest competition in Australia, runner up in the Patricia Fagan Operatic Aria competition at the Cowra Eisteddfod, finalist in the BlueScope Wollongong, Operatic Aria competition and the RMP Aria competition in Melbourne.