ROCKY DUVAL
mezzo / zwischen
Rocky Duval, American mezzo-soprano, has been hailed as “extravagant” (NY Times), “beautiful - visually and vocally,” (Deviant Opera), and “deeply moving” (NYPL-LPA).
2025-2026 will bring Ms. Duval to Montreal as the mezzo-soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with L’Harmonie des Saisons, and she will reprise her role using the BodyMouth instrument in The Mutables at HERE Arts NYC in October. She was again accepted to join the prestigious Avaloch Farm Music Institute residency with her ensemble Lazzuli Baroque September 2025. Lazzuli will tour Toronto in September, NYC in February, and Montreal in April. She will also perform many concerts with Theotokos Ensemble in NYC, including Hildegard/Bernard, a new lecture/performance curated with Juilliard professors and performers. In March, Ms. Duval will make her directorial debut with Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum at Holy Apostles Episcopal church in Brooklyn NY, in partnership with Brooklyn College and St. Ann’s School.
The 2024-2025 season brought Ms. Duval to Seattle Opera to reprise her role as Eda in Paige Hernandez’s Stomping Grounds, as well as to Princeton University to play Anne Bonny in a workshop of Kamala Sanakram’s opera, Custom of the Coast, a co-production with the Guggenheim’s Works and Process and Experiments in Opera. She was praised for her “clarity of pitch and articulation” (bachtrack). In New York, she played Iro in Monterverdi’s Il Ritorno d'Ulisse with ARTEK Early Music. She joined Ms. Sankaram again in a piece written specifically for Duval called “Bodymouth” by transdisciplinary artist Kat Mustatea. Duval reprised her work Hildegard, Reborn at the Cultural Caravan Festival in Boulder CO, and as part of the Evenings at St. Mary’s series in NY. Her concert work this season included singing the mezzo-soprano solos in Bach’s Magnificat at the Burlington Baroque Festival, and debuting as the mezzo soloist in the USA premiere of Doug Balliett’s St. Mark Passion. As a recitalist, Ms. Duval sang with Theotokos Early Music in Scenes from the Life of Mary featuring works by Strozzi, Sances, Scarlatti, and Purcell, and sang Bach, Boismortier, and Handel with Harmonie Collective for a Gotham Early Music Scene concert.
In 2023-2024, Ms. Duval debuted her work Hildegard, Reborn at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in Lincoln Center to wide acclaim. She sang Erismena in L’Erismena by Cavalli at the Amherst Early Music Festival, and was a part of many recording sessions with Fourth Wall Ensemble, including Emmy-winning composer Jeff Beal’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary which debuted at Carnegie Hall. She was a resident artist at 2B&2C Gallery in the East Village, and was a young artist at Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, where she sang solos in works by Bach, Handel, and Charpentier.
During the 2021-2022 season, she was a soloist at the Montreal Bach Festival, won first place in Japan’s Ise-Shima Singing Competition, sang Jack Frost in a workshop of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus with American Opera Projects, debuted as Hansel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel with Playground Opera NY, and sang in the ensemble in Fresh Squeezed Opera’s Self Defined Circuits.
In the 2020-2021 season, Ms. Duval was accepted to American Bach Soloists, made her debut with Experiments in Opera singing various roles in the podcast opera, Aquanet and Funyuns. She was a featured soloist in Opera Steamboat’s gala, and sang the role of Hekya in Jeffrey Leiser’s Freydis and Gudrid, which can be found on IMdB, and streaming on Amazon. Her voice was also featured in a McDonald’s Christmas Commercial in 2021.
Rocky’s other operatic experience includes Eda in Paige Hernandez’s Stomping Grounds, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Carmen and Michaela in Carmen, Damon in Acis and Galatea, Rosalba in Florencia en el Amazonas, Paula in Rio de Mujeres, and more. She was a session singer with the London Philharmonic in Nilda Scalise’s Symphony of Poems.
Ms. Duval’s soloist concert experience includes Mozart Requiem, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Haydn Creation, Handel Messiah, Bach Magnificat, St, John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, Vivaldi Stabat Mater, Gloria, Faure Requiem, Mendelssohn Midsummer, Grancini Dulcis Christis, Isaac Missa la Spagna, Sances Stabat Mater, Scarlatti Stabat Mater.