Melisa Bonetti Luna, Mezzo-soprano
Dominican-American Mezzo-Soprano, Melisa Bonetti Luna, is a versatile singer whose experience encompasses a mix of new works, as well as large traditional operas and concert works. Recent performances include the premiere of The Climate Opera Project at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) with American Opera projects, Carmen in CarmXn with the Hogfish festival in which the performers and creative team collectively devised a new adaptation, an opera gala with the ISING! Festival and the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra in Chengdu (China), Maddalena in Rigoletto with Opera San José, the premiere of Five Ways to Die with Experiments in Opera, mezzo-soprano soloist at Carnegie Hall for Bach’s Magnificat and Christmas Oratorio with the Cecilia Chorus of New York, soloist at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center and the Kimmel Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a concert of Ancient Tang Poems with the ISING! Festival, and the premiere of Paraíso at National Sawdust by Sokio and Natasha Tiniacos.
Melisa is also an avid performer of Spanish song repertoire singing in and programming recitals representing Latine composers of today. Other opera premiere and workshop performances include the premiere of Three Way including in the grammy nominated original cast recording, by Robert Patterson and David Cote with Nashville Opera and American Opera Projects, the latter being at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, A Marvelous Order by Judd Greenstein and Tracy K. Smith, workshops of On the Road to Arivaca by Rosino Serrano and Susan Galbraith with Alliance for New Music Theatre, the premiere of Southern Crossings by Zaid Jabri, Yvette Christiansë & Rosalind Morris, workshop performances of La Alcaldesa by Laura Jobin-Acosta and Sandra Flores-Strand.
Having had the opportunity to create in new works has lead Melisa to sing in many genre-fusion productions including jazz-operas, rock-operas, latin-operas, pop-operas, hip-hop/classical fusion pieces, and more. Her passion lies in the diversity of mixing different musical influences and expanding whose stories are being told.
Other performances include Federico García Lorca in Ainadamar with the Lexington Philharmonic and Kentucky Opera, Stéphano in Romeo et Juliette with Opera San José, Zerlina in Don Giovanni with Virginia Opera, Eva in An American Dream with Virginia Opera, Anita in West Side Story with the Brott Music Festival in Ontario, a rock opera premiere; The Bradbury Tattoos with Concert: Nova, Marta in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta with Queen City Opera, Alisa in Lucia di Lammermoor with Virginia Opera, Die Knusperhexe in Hansel und Gretel with Union Avenue Opera, Mercedes in Carmen with Nashville Opera and Opera Columbus, Lilith in Dracula; Bloodlines with the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, Clare in A Woman in Morocco with Kentucky Opera, and Emelda in Champion (workshop) in collaboration with Cincinnati Opera, Abuela in La Vida Breve with Cincinnati Chamber Opera, Maria Maddalena in Galileo Galilei with Des Moines Metro Opera, Emilia in Otello with Dayton Opera, Flora in La Traviata with Kentucky Opera & Shippensburg Festival, Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro with Kentucky Opera concert tour, and Isabela in La Hija de Rappaccini with Des Moines Metro Opera.
Concert performances include Das Knaben Wunderhorn, selections with the Richmond Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem and Handel’s Messiah with the Dayton Philharmonic, El Amor Brujo with the Queens Symphony Orchestra, Naxos recording of a wind symphony arrangement of Granados Tonadillas, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 & Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Queens College Orchestra.
Ms.Bonetti completed her Master’s at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and her Bachelor’s at Queens College’s Aaron Copland School of Music in New York. She also attended the inaugural I Sing Beijing program now known as SING!, the Wolf Trap studio artist program, and toured an arias concert in Bologna, Italy after being invited back from completing the International Voice Masterclass Ebe Stignani program.
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