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Possessing a voice praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for its “effortless precision and tonal luster,” Jessica Rivera is established as one of the most creatively inspired vocal artists before the public today. The intelligence, dimension, and spirituality with which she infuses her performances on the great international concert and opera stages has garnered Ms. Rivera unique artistic collaborations with many of today’s most celebrated composers including John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, and Nico Muhly, and has brought her together in collaboration with such esteemed conductors as Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Ms. Rivera was heralded in the world premiere of John Adams’s newest opera, A Flowering Tree, singing the role of Kumudha, in a production directed by Peter Sellars as part of the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. Since then, she has performed A Flowering Tree for her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker with Sir Simon Rattle and, under the composer’s baton, with the Cincinnati Opera, San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre. The
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Possessing a voice praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for its “effortless precision and tonal luster,” Jessica Rivera is established as one of the most creatively inspired vocal artists before the public today. The intelligence, dimension, and spirituality with which she infuses her performances on the great international concert and opera stages has garnered Ms. Rivera unique artistic collaborations with many of today’s most celebrated composers including John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, and Nico Muhly, and has brought her together in collaboration with such esteemed conductors as Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Ms. Rivera was heralded in the world premiere of John Adams’s newest opera, A Flowering Tree, singing the role of Kumudha, in a production directed by Peter Sellars as part of the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. Since then, she has performed A Flowering Tree for her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker with Sir Simon Rattle and, under the composer’s baton, with the Cincinnati Opera, San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre. The London performances were recorded and are now commercially available on the Nonesuch Records label.
The artist made her European operatic debut as Kitty Oppenheimer in Peter Sellars’s acclaimed production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic with the Netherlands Opera, a role that also served for her debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and she joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera for its new production of Doctor Atomic under the direction of Alan Gilbert. She gave concert performances of Doctor Atomic with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and her portrayal of Kitty Oppenheimer was captured in Amsterdam and is commercially available on DVD on the BBC/Opus Arte label.
During the 2011-12 season Rivera makes her debut with the Finnish National Opera as Kitty Oppenheimer, and with Madrid’s Teatro Real in Golijov’s Ainadamar, singing the role of Margarita Xirgu. She returns to the Atlanta Symphony, led by Robert Spano, for concert performances of Adams’s A Flowering Tree, and to the Cartagena Festival in Colombia for Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos. Under the direction of Bernard Haitink, Rivera makes her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which she also sings with the Houston Symphony under Hans Graf, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and in Salle Pleyel in Paris. Other season highlights include the world premiere of a new work by Gabriela Lena Frank with Joana Carneiro and the Berkeley Symphony, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony, and a solo recital presented by San Francisco Performances.
Jessica Rivera is now in her second year of the Artist Residency Program with San Francisco Performances where she conducts workshops in classroom and community settings throughout the Bay Area encouraging young people to open their minds to the beauty and power of music as well as to the poetry and spirit behind the art of song.
Performances of the 2010-11 season included John Adams’s El Niño under the composer’s baton at the San Francisco Symphony and at the Edinburgh International Festival with James Conlon and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Golijov’s She Was Here with Roberto Minczuk and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, Britten’s Spring Symphony with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s Second Symphony with Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with Franz Welser-Möst for a debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, and Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”) with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Ms. Rivera covered the role of Pat Nixon for the Metropolitan Opera’s company premiere of Nixon in China directed by Peter Sellars and conducted by John Adams, and joined the Grammy Award-winning Beninoise singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo for the world premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Hope: An Oratorio at the Kimmel Center with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Carnegie Hall and Cal Performances Berkeley co-commissiond a work for Jessica Rivera written by Mark Grey to a libretto by Niloufar Talebi; Ātash Sorushān (Fire Angels) received its premiere during recital presentations at Zankel Hall and Hertz Hall in a collaboration with pianist Molly Morkoski and the MEME Chamber Ensemble.
Highlights of recent seasons include performances of El Niño with David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Nixon Tapes with the Pittsburgh Symphony under the direction of John Adams, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Sir Roger Norrington and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, with Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and with Michael Tilson Thomas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Adams’s A Flowering Tree with Joana Carneiro and the Gulbenkian Orchestra and Chorus at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, Carmen, as Micaëla, with Bramwell Tovey and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Poulenc’s Gloria with Mr. Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which she also sang with Grant Gershon at the Hollywood Bowl, and Ravel’s Shéhérazade with Mr. Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony.
Jessica Rivera made her critically acclaimed Santa Fe Opera debut in the summer of 2005 as Nuria in the world premiere of the revised edition of Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar. She reprised the role for the 2007 Grammy Award-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Robert Spano, and bowed in the Peter Sellars staging at Lincoln Center, Opera Boston, as well as in performances at the Barbican Centre, the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Cincinnati Opera, and the Ojai and Ravinia Festivals. The artist’s first performances of Margarita Xirgu in Ainadamar, a role created by Dawn Upshaw, occurred in the summer of 2007 at the Colorado Music Festival under the baton of Michael Christie.
Committed to the art of recital, Ms. Rivera has performed in concert halls in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Fe. In past seasons, to support a recital disc on the Urtext Records label that examines works for soprano, clarinet, and piano, Ms. Rivera toured North America with concerts in Los Angeles, New York (Carnegie Hall), Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, and Chicago (Ravinia Festival). She also has given a recital program at the Amelia Island Festival accompanied at the piano by Robert Spano. She was deeply honored to have received a commission from Carnegie Hall for the world premiere of a song cycle by Nico Muhly called The Adulteress given on the occasion of her Weill Hall recital performance.
Ms. Rivera has sung Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Musetta in La bohème with the Los Angeles Opera. As a member of the prestigious Los Angeles Opera Resident Artist Program for three seasons, she received critical acclaim from The New York Times for creating the role of Anastasia in the world premiere of Deborah Dratell’s Nicholas and Alexandra.
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Reviews
"Jessica Rivera as Kitty gave the most compelling performance of the evening. She was capable of filling the stage and reaching out to the listener even when she was alone. "
Liisamaija Hautsalo, Turun Sanomat
"The other American guest soloist, Jessica Rivera, brought her immensely beautiful soprano voice to the part of Oppenheimer’s wife."
Jaakko Haapaniemi, Länsi-Savo
" Jessica Rivera as Kitty performed with sparkling operatic colour but was not averse to a bit of Broadway flair when required. She is an accomplished and versatile soprano who gave a convincing character performance. "
Matti Saurama, Uutispäivä Demari
"Rivera gave a deeply moving performance as Kumudha, both vulnerable as the young bride and tragic in the darker moments. She fully inhabited her role, and sang radiantly, whether a wide-eyed young girl dreaming of magical powers, or slithering over the stage in her grotesque, part-human form."
Janelle Gelfand, Cincinnati.com
"Dudamel’s transcendent performance of this special, spectral symphony with soprano Jessica Rivera was one of the great ones and a fitting elegy to both Górecki and Lieberson. Rivera stood on a platform, amid the first row of strings, facing the conductor. That, too, proved profoundly effective. Her soprano soared. Different singers give these songs different degrees of sorrowfulness. Vibrato-laden Polish sopranos in early performances (the symphony was written in 1976) laid the lamenting on impressively thick. Upshaw was the celestial, pure voice of a consoling angel. Rivera amazingly manages to do both. Like Dudamel, she produced a big sound and conveyed continual intensity. But she had her halo on as well. A young singer who has worked closely with Upshaw, she now owns Górecki’s Third."
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
"California-born Jessica Rivera epitomises the younger, post-Upshaw generation of American soprano, as much at home in Golijov, Salonen and Adams as she is in the conventional song literature and uncommonly eloquent in all of them. Match a voluptuous instrument that meets all technical challenges at both ends of the scale with a formidable musical intelligence and a capacity for projecting a text that can seem both intimate and operatic and you have an artist for whom great scores may yet be composed."
Allan Ulrich, Financial Times
"But the performance [of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony] didn't just delight. It also served effectively as the prelude to the famous finale, a song for soprano depicting heaven as a place of feasts and games. All too often, vocalists in this spot fail to impress, but soprano Jessica Rivera left nothing else to be desired. Hers was a voice of ravishing fullness, and her performance readily conveyed the scene's innocence and energy."
Zachary Lewis, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"For this reviewer, Jessica Rivera's performance of Peter's lament is the most powerful moment in the entire work (Deutsche Grammophon recording of Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos). Her rendition is characterized by a delicate vulnerability and a profound sense of loss. "
Arlo McKinnon, Opera News
"Weill can give singers a too-bright, edgy sound, but Jessica Rivera tamed the hall impressively, enunciating and dramatizing the text effectively and dispatching the runs in the final section – including the rapid-fire high notes – with total command and sunny optimism."
Gene Gaudette, ClassicalSource.com
"The solo singing was tremendous…Jessica Rivera represented humanity grappling to comprehend the divine."
Tim Ashley, The Guardian
"The impressive performers Saturday were imported from Caracas and included many from the Stuttgart premiere, including the Schola Cantorum, which sings and moves and makes textured sounds like no other chorus… Jessica Rivera was the heart-stopping soprano."
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
"Carneiro led a dreamlike performance of Samuel Barber's "Knoxville, Summer of 1915." And then the true show began: The young soprano Jessica Rivera, the symphony's resident artist this season, infused Agee's words with nostalgia and love, anxiety and wonder. One could practically see the fireflies, feel the Southern humidity and the haze of twilight in Rivera's voice, which is rich with color — a match for her magenta gown. The soprano moved evenly across her wide range, with long notes riding on untroubled streams of breath…this was a gorgeous performance."
Richard Sheinin, San Jose Mercury News
"Jessica Rivera, the American soprano, who made a memorable appearance with this orchestra in Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Five Images After Sappho earlier in the season, returned Thursday in brilliant form, effortlessly projecting the sweetness and longing in Barber’s fragrant settings of texts by poet James Agee. Rivera has it all — radiant tone, crystalline top notes, and the ability to communicate the essence of the texts in purely dramatic terms; her performance was both technically secure and ineffably touching."
Georgia Rowe, San Francisco Classical Voice
"With soprano Jessica Rivera as the luminous soloist, Salonen's resourceful and sometimes surprising settings caught the flavor of these poetic fragments about love and marriage…Rivera gave a gorgeous, nuanced performance, marked by effortless precision and tonal luster."
Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
"The Chicago Symphony Chorus is in terrific form, and soprano Jessica Rivera is exquisitely poignant in the crucial solo part [of Poulenc Gloria]."
Andrew Farach-Colton, Gramomphone
"Mr. Adams wrote not only wonderfully rhapsodic music for Ms. Rivera, who displayed a fervent, ¬expressive soprano, but shimmering, ecstatic orchestral passages for her various transformations."
Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal
"The singing was exceptional. In her few short years working with Adams and Sellars, Jessica Rivera has grown into a radiant soprano. Her deeply affecting Kumudha will be the model for all who follow her in this marvelous role."
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
"Jessica Rivera demanded empathy in her vocally visceral portrayal of Kitty."
Michael Huebner, The Birmingham News
"Rivera’s voluptuous soprano, with a hint of melancholy in her tone, made Kitty a woman of strength and pathos."
Pierre Ruhe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Soprano Jessica Rivera's intrinsically sympathetic timbre traced her vocal line plangently, and she has the considerable technical control required by the writing."
Mark Thomas Ketterson, Opera News
"“…soprano Jessica Rivera, so arresting as Kitty Oppenheimer in Lyric Opera's "Doctor Atomic," was arresting again as Nuria, Xirgu's devoted student."
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
"Soprano Jessica Rivera made a strong impression as soloist in Golijov's Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra, a work composed for Dawn Upshaw…Rivera sang the first and second songs in a rich, luminous soprano that seemed to melt, rather than move, from note to note. The sensuality of her voice imbued Golijov's haunting melodies with a rich multitude of meanings."
Barbara Zuck, Columbus Dispatch
"Jessica Rivera, as the long-suffering alcoholic Kitty Oppenheimer, courageously takes on the role’s demands of angular, quasi-Schoenberg writing balanced by florid coloratura, and is an affecting actor as well."
Marc Geelhoed, Financial Times
"Soprano Jessica Rivera brings a silvery tone reminiscent of Dawn Upshaw to the role of Kitty."
Mike Silverman, Associated Press
"Adams has recast the role of Kitty Oppenheimer, the Cassandra-like wife of the work's protagonist, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, for soprano voice, radiantly taken here by Jessica Rivera…Rivera [is] tremendous."
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
"Soprano Jessica Rivera smoothly negotiated her ascents in her "Domine Deus" solo and floated her high pianissimos well."
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
"Jessica Rivera sang Nuria with a river of luminous tone."
Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe
"Jessica Rivera sounding radiant as Kumudha…"
Erica Jeal, The Guardian Unlimited
"The trio of singers on stage… were strong in their respective roles, and their comfort with one another and the work was evident, although it was Rivera who really shone. Something of an Adams authority - she gave world premiere of this role, which she reprised for her Berliner Philharmoniker debut with Simon Rattle, her European operatic debut was in Adams' opera Doctor Atomic, and she has also performed the soprano solo of his 2000 work El Nino - she was pitch perfect throughout the performance. Even whilst twisted into various contortions as a limbless half-tree half-human, her vocal flair was never compromised."
Una-Frances Clark, MusicalCriticism.com
"Jessica Rivera stepped up to the demanding role of Margarita. It was a triumph of vocal and dramatic power. Rivera (and her cohorts) never broke character, even when seated onstage. Those final cries of anguish for her long-departed friend Lorca were spine-chilling."
Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News
"With her floating, multidimensional and expressive voice, Rivera offered a deeply committed, affecting performance as Xirgu."
Kyle MacMillan, The Denver Post
"Jessica Rivera (Kumudha), a young soprano in a career-making role, was even more rapturous than at the premiere."
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
"Vocally, the evening's star was soprano Jessica Rivera, who sang Kumudha with a stunning blend of tonal warmth, emotional depth and precision."
Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
"(John Adams) gives silvery singing to Ms. Rivera, who delivers on the gift."
Anne Midgette, The New York Times
"Reedy-voiced soprano Jessica Rivera and heroic tenor Russell Thomas are a dream couple in the soaring vocal lines of Kumudha and the Prince."
Musical America
"The third major role is Nuria, Margarita’s most devoted student, movingly performed by the vocally luminous young soprano Jessica Rivera."
Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
"Jessica Rivera as Margarita’s student Nuria, embodied horror at the past and a faint touch of hope for the future."
Simon Williams, Opera News
"… the vocal lines took on a hallucinatory power as sung by…the silvery soprano Jessica Rivera as Xirgu’s student, Nuria."
Chicago Tribune
"Jessica Rivera pours out gleaming sound as Xirgu's student."
Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe
"Jessica Rivera sang Nuria with a gorgeous high soprano."
Los Angeles Times
"Singing very well was the young soprano Jessica Rivera, in the role of Nuria, Margarita’s student. She showed a solid technique and a pure interesting sound - a sound not unlike Dawn Upshaw’s actually. A major career for Ms. Rivera seems inevitable."
Jay Nordlinger, The New York Sun
"As Nuria, Jessica Rivera offers a pure, beautifully projected voice."
Santa Fe Reporter
"Jessica Rivera was a gentle, lyric, and touching Nuria, with a silvery soprano and a character alternating between impulsiveness and obedience."
Craig Smith, Santa Fe Pasa Tiempo
"“… the performers on the Deutsche Grammophon recording seem enthralled with the work. There are brave and vulnerable performances from Dawn Upshaw and the soprano Jessica Rivera…"
The New York Times
"And disappointment over the cancellation of Dawn Upshaw, who created the soprano role, turned into delight at the poised, beautiful singing of her substitute Jessica Rivera."
The Boston Herald
"No less satisfying was Jessica Rivera’s feisty, outspoken maid, Despina. She possesses a light, charming soprano with enough punch and flexibility to mock and provoke when needed. Her Despina was a delight from start to finish, which is exactly as it should be. Ms. Rivera also gave us a surprisingly effective psychological moment during the lyrical tempo change in ‘In uomini, in soldati’ where Despina suffered a sudden wave of bitterness towards her own lost lover – a memorable moment."
Santa Barbara News Press
"Ms. Gustafson, Mr. Gilfry and Jessica Rivera, as Anastasia, were all terrific."
The New York Times
"Jessica Rivera revealed a fresh young voice in five Richard Strauss songs. She showed intelligent phrasing, especially in Wiegenlied, and a real gleam in the upper register. The highlight was a poised Morgen."
The New Zealand Herald
"Last Thursday’s Auckland Philharmonia concert with the delectable Jessica Rivera was a stunner."
The New Zealand Herald
"… soprano soloist Jessica Rivera’s radiant voice emerged magically from the choral texture."
Fort Worth Star Telegram
"(Osvaldo) Golijov’s increasing ability to find the core of the emotional expression in pure music, every transparent gesture beautifully conceived. Jessica Rivera was the shining soprano."
Los Angeles Times
"The young artist who emerged highly accomplished, fully equipped and most promising was soprano Jessica Rivera . . . she should go far."
"Soloists Keith Phares and Jessica Rivera were outstanding throughout the two-hour plus program that culled a few of the gems from musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein . . . Rivera, who has the sort of lyric soprano voice that is naturally ideal for these songs, also brought something special to every number, including a lovely reading of ‘Hello Young Lovers."
Fort Worth Star Telegram
"The program began with Barber’s Hermit Songs . . . Jessica Rivera was the excellent soprano… she gave good character to each song and let the music do the rest . . . Rivera’s clear soprano delivery was also notable for a lovely quality that resists definition."
New York Concert Review