Elizabeth Bishop (mezzo-soprano)

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Elizabeth Bishop is an American mezzo-soprano and voice teacher. She was born in South Carolina and studied at Furman University (a double major in Political Science and Music) before training at Juilliard. She won the 1993 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and joined the San Francisco Opera as an Adler Fellow in 1994. She has sung at the Metropolitan Opera more than 60 times and is known for her strong supporting roles in major operas.

Her roles include Emilia in Otello, Eboli in Don Carlo, Meg Page in Falstaff, La Marquise de Merteuil in The Dangerous Liaisons, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, and Mère Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites. She has also performed many Wagnerian roles, such as Fricka, Waltraute, the Second Norn, and Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde. In 2013 she made headlines at the Met by singing two major roles in one day (Mère Marie and Fricka), described by the New York Times as “vocally lustrous.”

On the concert stage she sings Mahler, including Das Lied von der Erde and Mahler’s Second, Third, and Eighth Symphonies. She has said she has built a long career by being versatile and reliable. Bishop teaches voice at Juilliard and has taught at Furman, Palm Beach Opera, Wolf Trap, Baldwin Wallace, and the Washington National Opera Institute for Young Singers. In 2014 she started the Potomac Vocal Institute with pianist Patrick O’Donnell. Her husband, Ken Weiss, is a voice coach at the Washington National Opera, and they live in Washington, DC with their daughter.