Sharon Daniels

Miss Daniels made her professional AGMA debut as a Flower Maiden in_Parsifal_ with the San Francisco Opera, where she also sang with its subsidiaries Western Opera Theater and Spring Opera. A move to New York brought the title role of La Belle Helene with New York City Opera, a company where she also sang the title roles in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah(opposite Sam Ramey as Blitch) and Lehar’s The Merry Widow, along with Micaela in Carmen, Musetta in La Bohème, Concepcion in L’heure Español, and Rose Maurrant in Street Scene, among others.

Renowned as a singing actress, she starred in the role of Rosabella opposite bass Georgio Tozzi in the Broadway revival and the PBS Great Performances telecast of The Most Happy Fella. She toured with the premiere world tour of Peter Sellars-Alice Goodman-John Adam’s Nixon in China as the cover for Pat Nixon, a role she performed in a “save-rave” performance at the Next Wave Festival in New York. For other American companies (Houston Grand Opera, Minnesota Opera, Opera Fort Worth, Opera Sacramento, Detroit Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Kansas City Lyric Opera, etc) she sang such roles as the title roles in Manon, The Ballad of Baby Doe, Susannah, The Merry Widow and Hiram Titus’ Rosina (premiere); Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Birdie in Regina, Yum Yum in_The Mikado_, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Josephine in HMS Pinafore, Curly’s Wife in Of Mice and Men, Marie in The Daughter of the Regiment, Pauline L’Allemande in Susa’s Black River, Irena in Wargo’s Seduction of a Lady (Premiere workshop with the composer), Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, and Adele in Die Fledermaus. Venues included The Kennedy Center, State Theater at Lincoln Center, The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, and The Majestic Theater on Broadway, to name a few.

She performed as recitalist and concert and pops soloist with such orchestras as San Francisco Symphony, Oakland Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Waterloo Symphony, the Kansas City Philharmonic, and the Banff Festival Orchestra.

At Boston University, Miss Daniels developed the new curriculum for the Opera Institute (started by Phyllis Curtin), initiated the Fall Fringe Festival, and has directed mainstage productions of Street Scene, A Month in the Country, The Marriage of Figaro, The Mother of Us All, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Albert Herring, La clemenza di Tito, Idomeneo, Die Fledermaus, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Pasquale, La finta giardiniera, Il barbieri di Siviglia, La Boheme, and Lucia di Lammermoor. Professionally she has stage directed_The Ballad of Baby Doe_ for both Kansas City Lyric Opera and Boston Lyric Opera, The Medium for Portland Opera, and Le Nozze di Figaro for Granite State Opera.

Since Miss Daniels joined the Boston University faculty in 1989, her voice studio has produced principal artists in many professional venues locally, nationally and internationally, and also has seen finalists and winners of many major competitions such as the Metropolitan Opera Regional and National Finals, The International Caruso Competition, The Liederkranz Competition, Young Concert Artist’s Guild Competition, The Joy of Singing Competition and The Jenny Lind Competition. She has been a member of NATS, Actors’ Equity, NOA, AGMA, and Opera America, where she currently serves on the National Singer Training Forum. She served as an Affiliate Artist for The John Deere Foundation in Waterloo and Ottumwa, Iowa and for the Kansas City Lyric Opera in Kansas City. She served the National Endowment for the Arts as funding panelist for Opera/Music Theater; composer review panelist for New American Works; and as on-site evaluator of funded projects. Adjudicator, Jose Iturbi Foundation Competition, 2009.