Biography

Soprano Michele Sexton has been hailed in the press as “tremendous”, “an artist worth discovering” with her “magnificent”, “big, flexible voice and shining tone” and character portrayals that are “mesmerizing”, “stirring” and “affecting”. Michele’s is a passionate, life-long love of music and performing that has taken this versatile
performer to the stages of opera, operetta, concert, and musical theater.

Ms. Sexton’s repertoire of operatic roles includes Mozart’s Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Fiodiligi in Cosi fan Tutte, Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Konstanze in Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Pamina and First Lady in Die Zauberflote, Verdi’s Violetta in La Traviata and Alice Ford in Falstaff, Mimi and Musetta in La Boheme, Lucia di Lammermoor, as well as Antonia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Juliette in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, and Micaela in Carmen. The world of operetta finds Michele at home in the roles of Hanna in The Merry Widow, and her critically acclaimed portrayal of Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus.

Ms. Sexton has performed extensively with opera companies, festivals, and musical groups throughout the United States and Europe including, Opera New Jersey, Des Moines Metro Opera, Natchez Festival of Music, Springfield Regional Opera in Missouri, The Shaker Mountain Performing Arts Festival, Opera in the Ozarks, and New Opera Festival di Roma. She has appeared as a soprano soloist with the New Jersey Pops Orchestra, Festival Orchestra of the Atlantic, and the Garden State Symphonic Band. In December/January 2012-13, Michele traveled to China for a six week concert tour as the soprano soloist with the Hollywood Concert Orchestra, playing some of the largest concert halls in China in a program of Broadway and cinema favorites. In June 2012, Ms. Sexton received critical praise for her portrayal of the Beggar Woman in “Sweeney Todd” at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. Other recent engagements include an appearance at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts in a concert of Broadway favorites and a concert of operatic standards with the Boheme Opera Company of New Jersey, as well as “Pop’ra” concerts with entertainer Vincent Talerico.

Michele’s musical gifts were evident at a very early age. By the age of five she was hitting the high notes along with Julie Andrews to recordings of “Sound of Music” and “Mary Poppins”. As a child, Michele studied piano but always preferred singing and began studying voice in her teens. She spent much of her late childhood and young adulthood starring in musical theater, from “OKLAHOMA!” and “Annie” to “Grease” and “Jesus Christ Superstar”. She went on to receive a Bachelor and Master of Music Degree in Vocal Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, financing her education by winning the title of Miss New Jersey and taking top prizes as a double preliminary competition winner in talent and swimsuit. She went on to distinguish herself on national television as a Top Ten Finalist in the 1993 Miss America Pageant, singing “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca.