A mezzo in a class by herself
(New York Times)

Dolora is bringing her extraordinary technique and great experience to the next generation of singers. Retirement from the opera stage is giving her the time to increase her work with young singers. Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices is the cornerstone of her teaching but in addition she is taking on teaching of individual […]

Hailed as a “force of nature” (Variety), renowned mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick has announced her retirement from the opera stage. Her final performances will be in spring 2020 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the opera house most closely associated with Dolora’s successes and where she made her debut as Azucena in Il Trovatore in […]

The legendary Dolora Zajick merits her own paragraph… Zajick is still a powerful Azucena, with an extraordinary charisma and a strong grip on the public. Everything in her singing, her intonation seems real, born in that moment. This is a gift that only the greatest artists of history have and Zajick has been one for […]

Opera Magazine Features IYDV

February 20, 2018|Uncategorized

In December 2017, Opera magazine featured an article on the Institute for Young Dramatic Voices. Music writer Brian Kellow talks to Dolora Zajick, students and faculty members about the program and what it achieves. Opera Magazine December 2017

Music writer Brian Kellow spent three days with the IYDV and writes about his experience, including an interview with Dolora. Read the full article here.

Dolora opened the gala concert with Deborah Voigt and then “returned later on to deliver a powerhouse account of “Voi lo sapete” from Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana,” (SF Gate, June 12)

“The wonderful, veteran mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick was, pushed around in a wheel chair and singing with an enormous sound and a pleasing, hard edge that captured the character’s authority.” (New York Classical Review, 26 April 2017) “Dolora Zajick invested Senta’s nurse Mary with considerable authority while travelling the stage in a wheelchair…” (George Loomis, Musical […]

“One surprise was the opportunity to hear one of the world’s top Verdian mezzos, Dolora Zajick, as Mrs. Grose, the bewildered housekeeper… She makes certain that her voice fits perfectly in the small ensemble and offers a clear difference in sound to Bell’s equally formidable soprano.” (Theatre Jones, 19 March 2017) “…exquisite high pianissimos, and […]

“Dolora Zajick is astonishing.  Wikipedia tells me she is sixty-two. Here is one of those mezzo voices that become more authoritative every year that passes.  Audience members were almost diving under their seats with the dark power of her incantations.  You won’t find a finer Ulrica anywhere.  Stunning.  Just what it needs to be.” (Seen […]

Dolora was presented with a commemorative golden anvil by General Manager Peter Gelb at Saturday’s performance of Verdi’s Il Trovatore in which she sings Azucena. She made her Met debut in 1988 in the same role and remains the definitive interpreter of Azucena, having sung it more than any other artist in Met history. Dolora has sung […]