Precision. Depth. Curiosity.
Heralded by the Brooklyn Discovery as “visually and vocally another bright ray,” mezzo soprano Michaela Larsen has a voice that is “plangent [and] coupled with excellent stagecraft.” Her impeccable technique and regal stage presence ground her as an artist, providing a rich foundation for creative exploration and daring, inspiring, and spell-binding storytelling. She leaves no stone unturned when it comes to repertoire–equally at home in and vocally suited to Baroque, Contemporary, and Romantic repertoire, and with a crystallized intelligence and devoted attention to every last detail on the score’s pages that is proven through her honest, nuanced, and bold delivery. The 2025-2026 season will see several role debuts: Dido (Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas), Santuzza (Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana), and La Zelatrice (Puccini’s Suor Angelica).
Operatic credits include: Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro) with Chautauqua Opera Conservatory, Sunnyside Opera, Stony Brook Opera, and Vienna Summer Music Festival; Hermia (Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) with Chicago Summer Opera; the title role in Gustav Holst’s Sāvitri; Jean in Jules Massenet’s Le portrait de Manon, Venus in John Blow’s Venus and Adonis; and Nancy in Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring with Stony Brook Opera.
Ms. Larsen shines especially brightly in new works, appearing in Michael Ching’s Notes on Viardot, a whimsical historical account of the illustrious singer/composer Pauline Viardot. Ms. Larsen portrayed the diva with Music OnSite in Wichita, Kansas in December 2024, receiving high praise from the composer himself for her interpretation of the role. Another warmly received return to Wichita saw her portrayal of pioneering woman pilot, Louise Thaden, in Lisa DeSpain and Rachel Peters’s Staggerwing, her debut performance with Opera Kansas. She was a Young Artist at the Chautauqua Institution’s Opera Conservatory in the Summer of 2025, where she sang in the orchestral workshop of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Lincoln in the Bardo, as well as Manuel de Falla’s La Vida Breve, appearing as Carmela.
Larsen and Ruano effortlessly rise to the challenge of carrying the show’s most lyrical, emotional moments. […] and Larsen unfolds a beautiful tone in “Dreamland.”
Sam Jack, The Shout, shoutwichita.com
Ms. Larsen appears frequently with the New York Philharmonic Chorus and made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the company’s acclaimed Verdi Requiem in September 2023, returning in the 2024-25 season in Beethoven’s Fidelio. She has performed with the all-professional octet at the Church of Corpus Christi, under the direction of Louise Basbas, succeeded by Kalle Toivio, and is now a resident artist with the Schola Cantorum of the Church of Saint Agnes, under the leadership of Eva Sze.
Concert engagements include Copland’s Old American Songs with the Long Island Concert Orchestra (Rites of Spring Festival at The Suffolk Theatre), and recurring appearances with the Opera Night Long Island concert series (Northport, NY).
Outside of her work as a performer, Ms. Larsen is an avid scholar, currently completing her doctoral studies at stony brook university, where she has presented her research on the life and work of pauline viardot, her arrangements of chopin’s mazurkas, served as the coordinator for undergraduate voice activities, and taught voice at the collegiate level for voice majors, as well as students from various disciplines in search of building their voice and creative presence.
She has been engaged as a research partner with a team from the stony Brook university Hospital and Renaissance school of medicine to contribute to the knowledge of singing’s impact on patients with long covid, sustained diaphragmatic function, and overall quality of life. She is also a guest clinician with shakespeare for parkinson’s.
At the heart of her artistic endeavors, regardless of their shapes or forms, Michaela lives and breathes that Singing is for everyone, and the power of the human voice is unshakable and to be celebrated as long as she has breath in her lungs.