Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Pétillot is enjoying a growing reputation as an engaging, impassioned, and intelligent performer of music ranging from opera, operetta, and musical theater to art song, oratorio and early music. In recent months she has performed as a featured soloist with the critically acclaimed American Repertory Ensemble, a performance which has been nominated as part of the 2007-2008 Austin Critics Table Awards, in the role of Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti with the University of Texas’s Butler Opera Center and as the soloist for a performance of Luciano Berio’s masterwork Folk Songs for chamber ensemble and mezzo-soprano with the Viola by Choice chamber ensemble. Her upcoming engagements include a tour to Denmark as part of an international symposium on choral music with the Grammy award nominated chamber choir Conspirare, various performances with the Festival Ensemble of the Oregon Bach Festival under the direction of Maestro Helmuth Rilling, and a solo recital at the University of Texas at Austin.
Elizabeth’s operatic credits include the roles of Ruth (The Pirates of Penzance) with the Dallas based company The Living Opera, Dinah (Trouble in Tahiti), Nicklausse (Les Contes D’Hoffmann), Lárina (Eugene Onegin) and Madame Sophronie (Della’s Gift) with the Butler Opera Center, Annio (La Clemenza di Tito) with the Austrian-American Mozart Academy, and Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro) with the Rome Festival Opera.
Ms. Pétillot is particularly interested in new music especially of Italian and Russian origin. She has premiered many works including art song, vocal chamber music and works for a cappella choir by well known composers such as Dan Welcher and Paul Crabtree as well as up-and-coming composers like P. Kellach Waddle and Rob Deemer. Elizabeth especially enjoys producing art song recitals featuring lesser known repertoire such as her fall 2006 recital Pathways to Shostakovich, a program honoring the centennial celebration of Dmitri Shostakovich which she performed in Austin, TX, at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, TX, and at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. Her forthcoming recital in September of 2008 will feature songs and arias by Vivaldi, Berlioz, and Wolf.
Elizabeth can be seen performing throughout Texas and nationally with organizations such as Conspirare, the American Repertory Ensemble, the Austin Chamber Music Center, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, the Austin Lyric Opera, the Texas Early Music Project, the San Antonio Chamber Choir, the Victoria Bach Festival and the Oregon Bach Festival.
In addition to her performing career, Elizabeth also spends much of her time teaching. Her teaching schedule includes a full home studio, voice lessons at a local high school, diction for singers at the University of Texas at Austin and private lessons in Italian grammar and diction. She speaks Italian and French fluently and has studied voice at Indiana University Bloomington where she received her Bachelors degree in vocal performance, and with Prof. Rose Taylor of the University of Texas at Austin where she completed her Masters degree in 2005. Elizabeth is now in her second year as a doctoral student in vocal performance at the University of Texas at Austin where, in addition to her studies, she also teaches voice and diction to undergraduates.
