Praised by Opera News for her “lush, flexible mezzo-soprano” and “insightful musicianship”, American-Chinese mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce is quickly garnering attention as an exciting artist in the opera industry.
The 2023-24 season begins with Ms. Pierce returning to the role of Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro marking her debut with New Orleans Opera. The rest of the calendar is filled with role and house debuts, including Suzy in La Rondine with the Metropolitan Opera, Siegrune in Die Walküre with the Dallas Symphony led by Fabio Luisi; Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia conducted by Gary Wedow as she returns to the Des Moines Metro Opera; Suzuki in Madama Butterfly with the Houston Grand Opera where she also sings Snake/Sheep in the world premiere of The Big Swim by composer Meilina Tsui and librettist Melisa Tien; Bertarido in Handel’s Rodelinda at Hudson Opera House with director R.B. Schlather; and Siébel in Faust with Berkshire Opera Festival and artistic director Brian Garman on the podium. Ms. Pierce also makes her debut with Virginia Symphony performing in Handel’s Messiah with Christopher Allen.
The previous season, Ms. Pierce returned to Houston Grand Opera to sing the role of Jack and cover Thirza in Dame Ethel Smyth's epic 1906 opera The Wreckers. She also made role and house debuts with Calgary Opera as Laurene Powell in The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs led by Michael Christie; Opera Philadelphia as Emilia in Rossini’s Otello alongside tenor Lawrence Brownlee with conductor Corrado Rovaris; and Detroit Opera as Arsamene in Xerxes under the baton of Dame Jane Glover. In concert, she performed Mozart’s Requiem with the Houston Symphony conducted by Itzhak Perlman; Szymanowski’s Songs of the Infatuated Muezzin with The Orchestra Now at the Fisher Center and Carnegie Hall with Leon Botstein on the podium; and a pair of recitals for Lyric Fest in Philadelphia. This summer, she performed at Des Moines Metro Opera as Sméraldine in their production of The Love for Three Oranges, conducted by David Neely, and as Toledo in The Falling and the Rising.
In the 2021-22 season, Ms. Pierce debuted four new roles on stage at Houston Grand Opera: Stéphano (Roméo et Juliette) directed by Tomer Zvulun; Sister Mathilde and covered Blanche de la Force (Dialogues des Carmélites) directed by Francesca Zambello and conducted by music director Patrick Summers; Second Lady (Die Zauberflöte) in the Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade production under the baton of Jane Glover; and Mercédès (Carmen) led by Lidiya Yankovskaya. Additional appearances included reviving her portrayal of Mozart’s Second Lady for Des Moines Metro Opera; joining the Aspen Music Festival in a role debut as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni reuniting with Dame Jane Glover as conductor and mezzo-soprano soloist in concerts of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream led by Nicholas McGegan and Druckman's Dark Upon the Harp; and made her San Francisco Opera debut as Bao Chai in Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber with conductor Darrell Ang.
In the 2020-21 season at Houston Grand Opera, Ms. Pierce sang the title role in a digital presentation of Hansel and Gretel by director Lileana Blain-Cruz with original animated settings by award-winning visual artist Hannah Wasileski. She also appeared as Liesl in the company's live sing-a-long event, My Favorite Things: Songs from The Sound of Music, which took place at the TDECU Stadium at the University of Houston. Scheduled appearances included Kätchen (Werther) as well as covering Angelina and singing Tisbe (La Cenerentola) before being canceled due to the pandemic. Recent scene productions with the Houston Grand Opera Studio include excerpts of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole, Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, and Bizet’s Carmen.
As winners of the 2019 Marilyn Horne Song Competition, Ms. Pierce and pianist Chien-Lin Lu premiered the song cycle, Wise Moon, written by three-time Grammy Award-winning composer Jennifer Higdon for the duo in a recital during the spring of 2022. Competing in the 2021 Dallas Opera National Vocal Competition, she tied for third place. In 2020, Ms. Pierce was the first place winner of the Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers and was selected as one of the Keston MAX Fellows, who were slated to perform with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle before the pandemic forced its cancellation. The previous year she was a semi-finalist in the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Lotte Lenya Competition and a Vocal Fellow at Music Academy of the West. Ms. Pierce was selected as an Encouragement Winner of the New England Region of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2021. Most recently, Ms. Pierce was award Third Prize at the 2023 Butler Opera International Voice Competition.
A native of Clinton, New York, she holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance degree from the Eastman School of Music and is an alumni of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music where she studied under the tutelage of Dawn Upshaw, Kayo Iwama, and Erika Switzer. Ms. Pierce completed her training as a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio in May 2022.
