Music Director
Victoria Atwater, Soprano
Victoria Atwater s known for her gleaming soprano, dazzling coloratura, and sparkling personality. Immediately upcoming. Miss Atwater will take her bow in the title role in a brand new concert version of Naughty Marietta with the Ocean City Pops Orchestra. She will make her solo artist debuts with both the Key West Pops and Bangkok (Thailand) Symphony Orchestras. She will also return to the Bendheim Performing Arts Center as solo artist in an all-Puccini concert and later in the title role in a staged concert version of The Merry Widow. She will return to the prestigious Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center as Stephano in Opera Tampa's Romeo et Juliette, following her success there as Frasquita in Carmen. Later in the season, she will return again to perform as Virginia Meecham in Maestro Anton Coppola's world premiere opera, Sacco and Vanzetti. Miss Atwater will perform her first Violetta in ten performances of La Traviata in Beijing, Shanghai, Kunming and other parts of China.
Most recently, Miss Atwater successfully debuted with the Valdasta Symphony Orchestra in Georgia as soprano soloist in her first Beethoven Missa Solemnis. Just prior to that, she performed as soprano soloist in Mozart's Coronation Mass and Requiem with Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra in Florida, and returned to the Treasure Coast Opera as Valencienne in The Merry Widow Also recently, the soprano received enthusiastic response at the Bendheim Performing Arts Center when she performed as solo artist in "Great Voices of Film" and "Tribute to Mozart" concerts.
Miss Atwater has performed most of the leading lyric coloratura soprano roles including Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, the title role in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Susanna in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Despina in Mozart's Cosi fan Tutti, Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Musetta in Puccini's La Boheme, Adele in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus, Oscar in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. Adina in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, Rosina in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Cunegonda in Bernstein's Candide, Gretel in Humperdink's Hansel and Gretel, Joanna in Andrew Lloyd Webber's SweeneyTodd, Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera and many others.
Victoria Atwater has appeared to much acclaim with Palm Beach Opera. Opera Birmingham, Opera Tampa, Birmingham Opera Theatre, Gold Coast Opera, Mississippi Opera, Metro Lyric Opera, Opera Northeast, Opera Management Corporation, National Lyric Opera, New Rochelle Opera, Treasure Coast Opera, Tennessee Opera Theatre, Tampa Bay Opera, Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera, New Jersey Verismo Opera. South Florida Opera, Westchester-Hudson Opera, Hudson Valley Opera. Opera Company of Ridgcwood, Opera AmaDeo, The Lark Ascending, Inc. and Opera at Florham.
A frequent visitor to the recital and concert stage, Miss Atwater has been heard widely throughout the United Stales, Canada, and Newfoundland as solo artist in three extensive concert tours with Columbia Artists Management Community Concerts. Internationally, she has concertized extensively throughout Europe, Pakistan, the Arabian Gulf, Thailand, China and the Caribbean. She has also been lauded for her work in oratorio, orchestral, and pops repertoire and has soloed with such international and U.S orchestras as the Cairo (Egypt), Bangkok (Thailand), Kunming (China), Buffalo, Evansville, and Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestras; with the New Mexico. Alabama, South Bend, Elkhart, South Shore and Valdosta Symphony Orchestras; with the Ocean City and Key West Pops Orchestras- with the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble and Greenwich Village Orchestra; with the Summit and Delray Beach Chorales, and with the Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra, Monmouth Civic-Chorus and Orchestra, City Stages Music Festival, and the Soho Arts Festival.
Victoria Atwater is a native of Elkhart, Indiana and holds both Master and Bachelor of Music Degrees in Voice Performance from the internationally famous Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana. While there, she performed eleven leading roles, two of which she created as American premieres; Asteria in Handel's extremely rare Tamerlano and the Swan Princess in the equally rare Legend of the Tsar Saltan by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakoff. Miss Atwater is a Regional Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Competition and currently makes her home in South Orange, New Jersey with her husband, tenor Bruce Reed and their daughter, two-year-old Vivien Rose.
Notes by Beth Bergman Fisher
Rockville Centre Guild for the Arts