Tessa McQueen

Tessa McQueen was named a 2024 National Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. She joins the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program with The Metropolitan Opera for the 2024-2025 season. She makes her MET debut as Countess Ceprano in Verdi’s Rigoletto during select performances in January.

McQueen joined the prestigious Merola Opera Program for the summer of 2024, covering Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and performing as Nedda in a selected scene from I Pagliacci for the Schwabacher Summer Scenes Concert. She also appeared in selected scenes for the summer season Grand Finale.

She spent her 2023 summer at Wolf Trap Opera as a first year Studio Artist where she covered Marguerite in Faust. She sang in the chorus of Semele and Faust and performed Elettra (Idomeneo), Alice Ford (Falstaff), and Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier) in the Studio Spotlight Scenes program.

McQueen most recently sang the Female Chorus in the The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten conducted by Ben Manis and directed by R.B. Schlather. This production was a double bill of Dido and Aeneas and The Rape of Lucretia in the Morrison Theatre at the Brockman Hall for Opera at Rice University. In the spring of 2023, she sang the title role of Poppea in L'incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi conducted by Gary Thor Wedow and directed by Jennifer Williams.

In the spring of 2024, McQueen won the Colorado-Wyoming District and the Rocky Mountain Region Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. In 2022 and 2023 she was named a Tulsa District Winner advancing to the Midwest Region, placing 3rd in 2022. She was also a Metropolitan Opera National Council Encouragement Award winner from the Tulsa District in January of 2020.

McQueen competed in the 2023 Palm Springs Opera Guild Competition and placed 3rd. She won the Myrle F. Hoffman Memorial Award, placing 3rd, in the 2022 Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition for Colorado singers. She won a Certificate of Merit in the 2023 Finals.

She joined Central City Opera in their 2022 season to sing Krystyna Zywulska in the newly edited premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Two Remain (Out of Darkness). McQueen was a season sponsored Young Artist by the El Pomar Foundation while in residence. She then received the coveted Young Artist Award at the end of the season.

On the concert stage, McQueen debuted with the Washington City Choir, in D.C. in January 2024, as the Soprano II Soloist for Mozart’s Grand C-minor Mass. This performance was led by Erin Freeman. McQueen performed as the Soprano Soloist with the Rice Chorale in John Rutter’s Requiem, led by Tom Jaber and Dr. Andrea Jaber in a 9/11 memorial tribute in 2022.

In 2020, McQueen was an Opera-To-Go Young Artist with Opera Saratoga. She sang the roles of Jack’s Mother and the Giant’s Wife in their touring production of Jack and The Beanstalk adapted by John Davies.

McQueen received her Master’s of Music in Voice Performance from Rice University (‘24). She coached with Tom Jaber as well as Bethany Self, Alex Munger, Lyndsi Maus, Nino Sanikidze, and Luke Housner while in attendance. She received her Bachelor’s of Music in Vocal Performance from Oklahoma City University (‘19), graduating with honors. She studied with Larry Keller while in attendance and coached with Jan McDaniel and Chuck Koslowske. Solo credits from OCU include Marie (Smetana’s The Bartered Bride), Susannah Polk (Floyd’s Susannah), and Cendrillon (Massenet’s Cendrillon).

She is currently under the tutelage of her teacher from Rice, Nova Thomas.

Tessa McQueen is currently based in New York City.

Photos by Tricia Virtue.