Whether she is seeing into the future as Ulrica, cackling her way into the hearts of Hansel and Gretel or reliving her mother’s death at the stake as Azucena, Sondra Kelly is known for her sumptuous dramatic mezzo-soprano and passionately strong characterizations.

Ms. Kelly’s professional career began at the Metropolitan Opera, where she appeared in more than two hundred and fifty performances of twenty-three different roles ranging from Mozart to Wagner. She has worked with many notable conductors and directors such as James Levine, Carlos Kleiber, James Conlon, Otto Schenk, Franco Zeffirelli and Gian Carlo del Monaco, to name a few. She made her much anticipated European debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Ulrica in a new production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera directed by Götz Friedrich. Soon after that other debuts included the Grand Theatre de Geneve, TML de Lausanne, Bregenz Festspiele and Hennessy Opera throughout Japan, China and Vietnam. This marks her fourth “Ring” cycle.

As a formidable interpreter of the dramatic mezzo repertoire, her successes include Ulrica in Berlin where her singing was described as “sumptuous” and “...some of the most beautiful singing heard at the Deutsche Oper” in Opera Magazine, the same role in Lausanne, Switzerland, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Azucena in Il trovatore for Connecticut Opera, Regina, Saskatchewan, Charlotte, North Carolina, Green Bay, Wisconsin, San Juan, Puerto Rico and Tampa, Florida; and Herodias in Salome for Utah Opera, where the Salt Lake Tribune singled her out for “her strong voice and effective projection of the calculating Herodias’ not so righteous indignation...”, also for Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Connecticut Opera.

Other repertoire includes Carmen in Carmen, Madame de Croissy from Dialogues of the Carmelites, Madame Flora from The Medium, Fricka from Die Walküre, Berta from Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Innkeeper from Boris Godunov and The Marquise from La fille du régiment, amongst others.

Ms. Kelly is an Artist Teacher on the faculty of The Hartt School at the University of Hartford. There she teaches voice, acting for singers, as well as directs. She is also Artistic Director of Vox Opera in Worcester, MA.

Her recordings include Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammaphon, BMOP and Koch Schwann and her DVDs are all “Live from the Met.”