J'nai Bridges

First-year Ryan Opera Center member J’nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano, has performed a wide range of roles, including Polly/The Beggar’s Opera and Ino/Semele (Manhattan School of Music); Idamante/Idomeneo, Carmen/La tragédie de Carmen, Teresa/La sonnambula, Iras/Antony and Cleopatra, and Baba the Turk/The Rake’s Progress (Curtis Institute of Music); and, as a last-minute substitute, the title role/Carmen (Glimmerglass Festival). Hailing from Lakewood, Washington, the mezzo made her professional debut in 2008 with Opera North as the Second Lady/The Magic Flute and returned the following season as Mercédès/Carmen. Other recent engagements include the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (Elgar’s Sea Pictures), Opera Orchestra of New York, The Master Chorale of South Florida (Handel’s Messiah), and performances at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center (Chansons Medecasses and a solo recital). Among Bridges’s honors are the 2012 Marian Anderson Award, winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions (2010, 2011), an Encouragement Award from the 2011 Opera Index competition, third place in the 2010 New York Lyric Opera Competition, a Richard F. Gold Career Grant, first prize from the Leontyne Price Foundation Competition, second place in the Long Island Masterworks Competition, and the Legacy Award from the National Opera Association Competition. This season at Lyric Opera she appears in Elektra, Simon Boccanegra, and Rigoletto.