CCM Voice alumna receives Richard Tucker Career Grant
Elena Villalón wins the $10,000 grant and makes her Metropolitan Opera debut this month
A UC College-Conservatory of Music alumna recently received the 2024 Richard Tucker Career Grant and made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera. Elena Villalón (BM Voice, ’19) is one of three recipients of the $10,000 grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation.
Elena Villalón.
The Richard Tucker Music Foundation is a non-profit cultural organization dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of the great Brooklyn-born tenor by nurturing the careers of talented young American opera singers. Through awards, grants for study, performance opportunities, and other activities, the foundation provides professional development for singers at various stages of their careers. Villalón also previously won the 2022 Sara Tucker Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation.
One of the youngest ever winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2019, Villalón is already attracting major industry attention with engagements at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Santa Fe, Carnegie Hall and Frankfurt Opera. On May 16, 2024, she made her Met Opera debut as Amore in Orfeo ed Euridice, which runs through June 8; learn more about the production.
During Villalón's studies at CCM, her undergraduate opera performance credits included the roles of Adele in Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Lucy in Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone and Miss Wordsworth in Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring. She studied with CCM Professor William McGraw, who retired in 2021.
Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and several prizes at the Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition, 25-year-old Cuban-American soprano Elena Villalón is already attracting major industry attention. A recent alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, her engagements this season include Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro at Houston Grand Opera, Gretel in Hansel und Gretel at Dallas Opera, the Queen of Sheba Solomon for an international tour with The English Concert and Harry Bicket and in Iole in a new Barrie Kosky production of Hercules as well as Atalanta in Xerxes, both at Opera Frankfurt where she is now a member of the ensemble. Engagements next season include her Metropolitan Opera debut as Amore in Orfeo ed Euridice, her return to Santa Fe with The Righteous, Messiah and Brahms Requiem with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as well as starring as Susanna in a new production of Le Nozze di Figaro in Frankfurt.
Recent engagements include house and role debuts at The Dallas Opera as Tina Flight, at Austin Opera as Susanna Le nozze di Figaro, Nannetta Falstaff with the Santa Fe Opera, as well as continued collaborations with Houston Grand Opera, where she created the role of Amy in the world premiere of Joel Thompson’s The Snowy Day and debuted the role of Juliette Roméo et Juliette.
In concert she appeared as the emerging artist recitalist with Vocal Arts DC, collaborating with Kathleen Kelly at the Kennedy Center, as the soprano soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Poulenc’s Gloria with the Grand Rapids Symphony and Handel’s Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day with Boston Baroque. Passionate about art song and concert repertoire, Villalón has spent summers at the Tanglewood Music Center and at Songfest in Los Angeles as a Colburn Fellow. At Tanglewood, performance highlights included the soprano solo in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, Max in Oliver Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are, the world premiere of Michael Gandolfi’s In America, concerts of Bach cantatas conducted by John Harbison, and concerts and recitals curated by Dawn Upshaw, Stephanie Blythe, Margo Garrett, and Sanford Sylvan. She has also appeared with Cincinnati Song Initiative and at the Rienzi Museum of Fine Arts as part of the studio recital series, and was featured in a concert of baroque cantatas and arias with the Mercury Chamber Orchestra.
As a Studio member of the Houston Grand Opera she performed in digital collaborations including David T. Little’s Vinkensport, The Snowy Day, and Hansel und Gretel, as well as a digital Studio Showcase, performing in scenes as Sophie Werther, the title role in Lulu, and Poppea L'incoronazione di Poppea. In performance at HGO, she performed the role of Inés in Kevin Newbery’s new production of La Favorite, La Mujer in the world premiere of Javier Martinez's El Milagro de Recuerdo, and understudied Pamina Die Zauberflöte and Michal Saul.
A native of Austin, Texas, Elena Villalón is an alumnus of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and made her professional debut as a Gerdine Young Artist at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she performed the role of Barbarina Le Nozze di Figaro and later returned for Lauretta Gianni Schicchi. A 2019 Grand Finals winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she recently took home several prizes in the Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition, including 2nd Prize, Audience Prize, CS Prize, and the Wil Keune Prize, a 2022 Sara Tucker Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, and the Richard F. Gold career grant from Houston Grand Opera.
About the Richard Tucker Music Foundation
After Richard Tucker’s untimely death in 1975, his duo partner and friend Robert Merrill worked with the Tucker family to organize a gathering of opera legends, including Martina Arroyo and Roberta Peters, to take place on what would have been the duo’s next date at Carnegie Hall. The Richard Tucker Music Foundation was formed later that year, and the concert became an annual tradition, raising funds to support young American opera singers and keep the beloved tenor’s memory alive.
For more than four decades, the foundation’s annual concert has brought together some of opera’s most illustrious stars, including Leonard Bernstein, Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, and Joan Sutherland. The Richard Tucker Music Foundation is a non-profit cultural organization dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of the great Brooklyn-born tenor by nurturing the careers of talented young American opera singers. Through awards, grants for study, performance opportunities, and other activities, the foundation provides professional development for singers at various stages of their careers. It also offers free performances in the New York metropolitan area, and supports music education enrichment programs. Each year, the foundation confers its most prestigious prize, the Richard Tucker Award (often referred to as the “Heisman Trophy of Opera”), on an artist poised at the edge of a major international career. Learn more.
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