Praised in Opera Now for her “angelic lyric soprano voice”, Charlotte Dobbs brings luminous sound and incisive musicianship to a broad repertoire that encompasses Bach, Mozart, and the bel canto masters, as well as the second Viennese school and contemporary composers.
Charlotte’s 2011-2012 season has included her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a concert of works of Mozart and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in Handel’s Messiah. In June, she will make her New York Philarmonic debut in a new song cycle by the Swiss composer Michael Jarrell. She joined the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for Bach’s Magnficat under Jeffrey Kahane. She also was featured in recital at Caramoor, and with the Claring Chamber Players for Faure’s La Bonne Chanson.
On the operatic stage, Charlotte made her European debut in 2009 as Corinna in Il viaggio a Reims at the Pesaro Rossini Festival, and returned to Italy to sing Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia in the theaters of Jesi, Fermo, and Ravenna. She also made her debut in 2009 with the Chicago Opera Theater, singing Servilia in La clemenza di Tito with Jane Glover in a new production of Christopher Alden. Under the baton of Lorin Maazel, she appeared as Governess in the Chateauville Foundation’s production of The Turn of the Screw in both 2009 and 2010. Other recent operatic credits include Amina in La Sonnambula, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Nuria in Ainadamar, and Countess in Le nozze di Figaro with the Curtis Opera Theater, as well as the title role in Iphigenie en Aulide, Elettra in Idomeneo, and Juno in La Calisto at Juilliard.
She appeared last season with Music of the Baroque in Chicago, in a concert performance of Dido and Aeneas and other works of Purcell, as well as several recital appearances at Caramoor. She also recently made her debut with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, singing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under the baton of Jeffrey Kahane. In 2008, she appeared in recital with Mitsuko Uchida at the Marlboro Music Festival, performing Schoenberg’s Book of the Hanging Gardens. Also at Marlboro, she gave her first performance of Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet, which was reprised in 2011 with the Saratoga Chamber Players. She has been featured in three programs with the New York Festival of Song, most recently “The Sweetest Path” at Caramoor and Merkin Hall. Miss Dobbs made her Kimmel Center and Carnegie Hall debuts in Nielsen’s Third Symphony with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in 2008, under the baton of Alan Gilbert.
In recent years, she participated in master classes with Alberto Zedda, Wolfgang Holzmair, Matthew Polenzani, and Dawn Upshaw. Born inMassachusetts, she has received an M.M. from both Juilliard and Curtis and a B.A. from Yale, where she majored in English and Music.
