Biography
Equally at home on the opera and concert stages, dynamic soprano Elizabeth Racheva has been hailed as “a great storyteller” (The Dallas Morning News) offering “bright, well-focused tone, exemplary diction and persuasive acting” (The Baltimore Sun). In 2009, she made her debut on the Cliburn at the Modern series under the auspices of the Van Cliburn Foundation in an afternoon with Jake Heggie, who played for the specially designed program of his songs. The 2009-2010 season includes the premiere of George Andoniadis’s concert opera, Lincoln: A Poetic Opera, in New York, NY with the Manhattan Choral Ensemble and her Philadelphia debut with Lyric Fest performing a variety of art songs as well as the role of Masha in Richard Wargo’s The Music Shop. She also looks forward to her first Creation as a guest artist with the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra and Schola Cantorum.
The 2007-2008 season marked Ms. Racheva’s debut with Mid-Atlantic Symphony, as well as a return to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in a program of Holiday Favorites and a reprise of Kapilow’s Green Eggs & Ham with Fort Worth Symphony. A popular chamber musician in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, she debuted last season with Camerata Winds, a chamber woodwind ensemble, and Fine Arts Chamber Players, joined by Russell Campbell, Associate Principal Trumpet for the DSO. She also made her role debut as Despina in Cosí fan tutte in a return to The Living Opera in June 2008.
In 2006-2007 the North Carolina native won praise in The Dallas Morning News both for her “impressive” debut with the Dallas Symphony in subscription concerts led by Maestro Claus Peter Flor, as well as repeat appearances with Voces Intimae, a Dallas-based organization devoted to sustaining art song performance. After several collaborations with Voces, Elizabeth was invited to lead the group as artistic director beginning in 2007-2008. Other debuts in 2006-2007 included Fort Worth Symphony, Charleston Symphony, The Living Opera, and the Dallas-based contemporary chamber music group, Voices of Change. In 2005-2006 the soprano debuted as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro with Greensboro Opera and as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel in a joint production with North Carolina Symphony and Capitol Opera Raleigh, which she was promptly engaged to reprise during that orchestra’s 2006 Summerfest series.
Elizabeth has embodied a number of dramatic and comedic heroines in both the standard and modern repertoire for which she has been acclaimed for her “delicious voice” (Classical Voice North Carolina). Her contemporary roles include Laurie Moss in Copland’s The Tender Land (Opera Vivente, The Living Opera), Masha in Richard Wargo’s The Music Shop (Baltimore Opera, 2002 and 2003 Artscape Festivals), Niece One (Peter Grimes, Berkshire Choral Festival), and the title roles in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and David Shapiro’s prize-winning chamber opera The April Witch, which she performed for the National Opera Association. Other favorite portrayals include Serpetta (Mozart’s La finta giardiniera), Valencienne (The Merry Widow), Lisette (La Rondine), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Erste Dame and Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Lizette (Naughty Marietta), Gianetta (The Gondoliers), and Serpina (La serva padrona) for presenters including Lyric Opera of New York, Baltimore Opera à la carte/Peggy & Yale Gordon Trust, Baltimore Opera Guild, and Young Victorian Theatre Company.
Elizabeth has appeared in concert and gala evenings for such presenters as Eugene Symphony, Columbia Bach Society, and the Lancaster Music Festival. Notable recital appearances include Trinity Church Concerts at One and Music at St. Paul’s in Manhattan, Easton’s Academy Art Museum Recital Series, Baltimore’s Music at Second Series as the winner of the Russell Wonderlic Competition, The Vienna Project: Vienna in Song at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, and the Rising Stars Concert Series in Fairfax, VA with flutist Betsy Garry as the prize-winning chamber music group Duo Rossignol.
Elizabeth was trained as a Resident Artist at Berkshire Opera Company and was also engaged as a member of the Baltimore Opera Education Ensemble in three different productions from 2000-2002, performing for schoolchildren throughout the Mid-Atlantic in venues including Wolftrap Theatre-in-the-Woods, Annapolis Opera, and Opera Delaware. She has also trained at the Middlebury College Deutscheschule and the Franz Schubert Institut in Baden bei Wien, Austria, where she specialized in the study of the Lied and had the honor to study Lieder and poetry with such eminent artists as Helmut Deutsch, Elly Ameling, Rudolf Jansen, Wolfgang Holzmair, and Robert Tear. Elizabeth earned a Bachelor of Arts with high honors from Emory University and a Master of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma, with certificate in opera performance, from Peabody Conservatory.
The 2007-2008 season marked Ms. Racheva’s debut with Mid-Atlantic Symphony, as well as a return to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in a program of Holiday Favorites and a reprise of Kapilow’s Green Eggs & Ham with Fort Worth Symphony. A popular chamber musician in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, she debuted last season with Camerata Winds, a chamber woodwind ensemble, and Fine Arts Chamber Players, joined by Russell Campbell, Associate Principal Trumpet for the DSO. She also made her role debut as Despina in Cosí fan tutte in a return to The Living Opera in June 2008.
In 2006-2007 the North Carolina native won praise in The Dallas Morning News both for her “impressive” debut with the Dallas Symphony in subscription concerts led by Maestro Claus Peter Flor, as well as repeat appearances with Voces Intimae, a Dallas-based organization devoted to sustaining art song performance. After several collaborations with Voces, Elizabeth was invited to lead the group as artistic director beginning in 2007-2008. Other debuts in 2006-2007 included Fort Worth Symphony, Charleston Symphony, The Living Opera, and the Dallas-based contemporary chamber music group, Voices of Change. In 2005-2006 the soprano debuted as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro with Greensboro Opera and as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel in a joint production with North Carolina Symphony and Capitol Opera Raleigh, which she was promptly engaged to reprise during that orchestra’s 2006 Summerfest series.
Elizabeth has embodied a number of dramatic and comedic heroines in both the standard and modern repertoire for which she has been acclaimed for her “delicious voice” (Classical Voice North Carolina). Her contemporary roles include Laurie Moss in Copland’s The Tender Land (Opera Vivente, The Living Opera), Masha in Richard Wargo’s The Music Shop (Baltimore Opera, 2002 and 2003 Artscape Festivals), Niece One (Peter Grimes, Berkshire Choral Festival), and the title roles in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and David Shapiro’s prize-winning chamber opera The April Witch, which she performed for the National Opera Association. Other favorite portrayals include Serpetta (Mozart’s La finta giardiniera), Valencienne (The Merry Widow), Lisette (La Rondine), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Erste Dame and Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Lizette (Naughty Marietta), Gianetta (The Gondoliers), and Serpina (La serva padrona) for presenters including Lyric Opera of New York, Baltimore Opera à la carte/Peggy & Yale Gordon Trust, Baltimore Opera Guild, and Young Victorian Theatre Company.
Elizabeth has appeared in concert and gala evenings for such presenters as Eugene Symphony, Columbia Bach Society, and the Lancaster Music Festival. Notable recital appearances include Trinity Church Concerts at One and Music at St. Paul’s in Manhattan, Easton’s Academy Art Museum Recital Series, Baltimore’s Music at Second Series as the winner of the Russell Wonderlic Competition, The Vienna Project: Vienna in Song at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, and the Rising Stars Concert Series in Fairfax, VA with flutist Betsy Garry as the prize-winning chamber music group Duo Rossignol.
Elizabeth was trained as a Resident Artist at Berkshire Opera Company and was also engaged as a member of the Baltimore Opera Education Ensemble in three different productions from 2000-2002, performing for schoolchildren throughout the Mid-Atlantic in venues including Wolftrap Theatre-in-the-Woods, Annapolis Opera, and Opera Delaware. She has also trained at the Middlebury College Deutscheschule and the Franz Schubert Institut in Baden bei Wien, Austria, where she specialized in the study of the Lied and had the honor to study Lieder and poetry with such eminent artists as Helmut Deutsch, Elly Ameling, Rudolf Jansen, Wolfgang Holzmair, and Robert Tear. Elizabeth earned a Bachelor of Arts with high honors from Emory University and a Master of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma, with certificate in opera performance, from Peabody Conservatory.