American soprano Maria Valdes has been praised by the New York Times as a “first-rate singing actress and a perfectly charming Gilda.” In the 2024–2025 season, Ms. Valdes made her debut with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and returned to the Greensboro Symphony to perform Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Requiem. A frequent artist with Hawaii Opera Theatre, she made her STUDIO101 debut in I’ll Be Seeing You, reprised the role of Micaëla in Carmen, and helped create the roles of Hana Hooper Ha’alilio and Himiko Hamilton in workshops of The Sheltering Tree and Tea. Other highlights included a role and company debut with Opera Wilmington as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, a recital tour in San Francisco and Hawaii with OperAloha, and returns to the Atlanta Master Chorale as the soloist in Mozart’s Requiem and Coronation Mass and Berkshire Lyric in Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten. In the upcoming season, she will perform Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Valdosta Symphony and Bellingham Festival of Music. Valdes returns to Symphony San Jose for Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem and Spanish River Concerts for “Broadway to Opera.” On the opera stage she returns to The Metropolitan Opera to cover Frida Image #1 in El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego.

 

Her 2023-2024 season was filled with returns to major orchestras and opera houses. On the symphonic stage, Ms. Valdes joined the Greensboro Symphony to sing Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and returned to the Phoenix Symphony for Strauss’s Four Last Songs. In recital, she was featured with Il Cenacolo Italian Club, the Cathedral of St. Paul, the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, Spanish River Concerts, and OperaAloha. Additionally, Ms. Valdes returned to Houston Grand Opera to cover Isabel Leonard in the title role of The Sound of Music.

 

In the 2022-2023 season, Ms. Valdes made her Metropolitan Opera debut, covering Papagena in The Magic Flute, returned to Atlanta Opera as Léontine in The Anonymous Lover, and appeared with Hawaii Opera Theatre as Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi. On the concert stage, she made her San Jose Symphony debut singing Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Carmina Burana, joined the Madison Chamber Music Festival in recital with tenor John Riesen, and performed in recital with renowned classical guitarist Pepe Romero at The Hamptons Festival of Music.

 

During the 2021-2022 season, Ms. Valdes debuted with the Georgia Symphony Orchestra as the soprano soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, returned to the Berkshire Opera Festival for a recital of Mozart selections alongside tenor Alex McKissick, and made her Hawaii Opera Theatre debut as Micaëla in Peter Brook’s La tragédie de Carmen. She also returned to The Phoenix Symphony as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, debuted as Maria in The Sound of Music with Charlottesville Opera and The Ellen Theater in Bozeman, joined Berkshire Lyric for Mozart’s Requiem and Laudate Dominum in the prestigious Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, made her Gulf Coast Symphony debut as the soprano soloist in a concert titled “A Grand Night of Opera,” and returned to the Bellingham Festival of Music for a concert of Strauss lieder.

 

In the 2020-2021 season, Ms. Valdes was scheduled to return to Houston Grand Opera to sing the role of Amy in the world premiere of The Snowy Day (postponed to the 2021-22 season due to COVID-19) and to make her Hawaii Opera Theatre debut as Euridice in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld (COVID-19). In 2021, she sang the role of Younger Alyce in Glory Denied at Atlanta Opera, joined NYFOS@Home for their It’s Summer in South America recital, covered the role of Lucy in The Threepenny Opera for Atlanta Opera, and joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for their series of short films, In The Key of Bach. That summer, she reprised Younger Alyce in Berkshire Opera Festival’s production of Glory Denied and performed as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with Summer Singers of Atlanta.

 

During the 2019-2020 season, Ms. Valdes returned to Atlanta Opera as Cristina Kahlo in Frida and made her Mobile Symphony debut in Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem. Highlights of the 2018-2019 season included her debut with Atlanta Opera as Doris Parker in Charlie Parker’s Yardbird and a company debut with Washington Concert Opera for their Opera Outside series. She also debuted as Violetta in La traviata at Gulfshore Opera, reprised Despina in Così fan tutte with the Rochester Philharmonic, and debuted with West Edge Opera as Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice. In concert, Ms. Valdes performed Handel’s Messiah with both the Virginia Symphony and the Phoenix Symphony, joined the Brooklyn Art Song Society singing Chants d’Auvergne by Joseph Canteloube, and debuted with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Serenade to Music by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Bach’s Cantata No. 29, “Wir danken dir, Gott.”

 

In the 2017-2018 season, Ms. Valdes debuted with New York City Opera, in collaboration with Houston Grand Opera, as Diana in the Mariachi opera, Cruzar la cara de la luna, and made her role and company debut with Opera San José as Despina in Così fan tutte. In the summer of 2018, she made company debuts with the Berkshire Opera Festival as Gilda in Rigoletto and with Opera Theatre of St. Louis as Amore in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. On the concert stage, Ms. Valdes performed Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the California Symphony, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the Phoenix Symphony, and Poulenc’s Gloria with the Bellingham Festival of Music.

 

In the 2016-2017 season, Ms. Valdes returned to San Francisco Opera to cover the role of Gilda, stepping in mid-performance when a colleague fell ill. A distinguished alumna of the SongFest program in Los Angeles, she performed a solo recital of Nordic, Spanish, and Latin American music in collaboration with pianist Javier Arrebola. Other season highlights included Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate with both the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Chattanooga Symphony, and performances with Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra singing Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and the West Coast premiere of Scott Ordway’s Tonight We Tell the Secrets of the World. Ms. Valdes also joined Concert Royal at St. Thomas Church in New York City for Messiah, where The New York Times noted she performed “beautifully, growing stronger as the evening progressed.”

 

In the 2015-2016 season, Ms. Valdes joined the roster of Lyric Opera of Chicago, covering Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, and completed her time as an Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera. As an Adler, she performed the roles of Musetta in La bohème, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, Clorinda in La Cenerentola, and Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro. Covers included Johanna in Sweeney Todd, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, Magnolia in Showboat, and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, a role she also performed in 2013 as a member of the Merola Opera Program.

 

An accomplished recitalist, Ms. Valdes has performed with Martin Katz, made her New York recital debut with NYFOS performing Compositora, a recital of female Latin American composers with Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, and attended the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, performing in several concerts. Ms. Valdes can be heard on recordings, singing Mendelssohn’s “Hear My Prayer” on the album Evening Hymn (Gothic Records) and on Atlanta Opera’s recent release of Glory Denied. An award-winner in the regional Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, Ms. Valdes is also the winner of the top prize at the Corbett Opera Scholarship Competition at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the recipient of a Shoshana Foundation Grant.