Lauded for her “elegance and youthful tone” (Financial Times) and “a complete dramatic presence with a voice as lustrous as it is molten” (Opera Magazine), mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey announces her 2024-2025 season, featuring a full slate of operatic roles, concert performances and recitals.
Highlights of Hankey’s 2024/2025 season include her highly anticipated debuts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival in Mozart's Idomeneo and with New National Theater Tokyo in the title role of Carmen. Following critically acclaimed performances as Octavian in the 2023 Metropolitan Opera production of Der Rosenkavalier, Hankey reprises the role at the Bayerische Staatsoper, where she also performs this season as Donna Elvira in a new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, as part of the 2025 Munich Opera Festival. In concert, Hankey is featured in a recital with two-time GRAMMY® nominee and pianist Myra Huang at The Kennedy Center, presented by Vocal Arts DC in a program of Schumann’s Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love).
Hankey concluded her 2023/24 season on a high note with two summer house debuts: Detroit Opera and London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden. She made her debut with Detroit Opera, starring as the Fox in The Cunning Little Vixen from May 11 to 19, 2024, and her performance was praised by Encore Michigan as “a joy and highlight of the opera.” Music Director Roberto Kalb conducted, and Artistic Director Yuval Sharon directed his production from The Cleveland Orchestra. She appeared as Cherubino in Semperoper Dresden’s production of Le nozze di Figaro on May 25 and June 1, 2024.
Hankey made her debut at London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Dorabella in Così fan tutte from June 26 to July 10, 2024. Conducted by Alexander Soddy and directed by Jan Philipp Gloger, the production featured a stellar cast including Golda Schultz (Fiordiligi), Daniel Behle (Ferrando), Andrè Schuen (Guglielmo), and Gerald Finley (Don Alfonso), joined by the Royal Opera Chorus and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
On Friday, August 9 and Sunday, August 11, 2024, Hankey makes her Ravinia Festival debut in the role of Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Conlon at the Martin Theatre in Highland Park, IL. Hankey is joined onstage by exceptional colleagues Matthew Polenzani, Andrea Carroll, and Tamara Wilson.
To begin 2025, Vocal Arts DC presents Hankey in a solo recital at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in Washington D.C. She performs alongside pianist Myra Huang in works including Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love) by Robert Schumann, a set of 16 songs composed by Schumann in response to his separation from his bride, Clara.
For five dates in February, Hankey makes her debut at the New National Theatre Tokyo to take the title role in Àlex Ollé’s production of Carmen. Gaetano d’Espinosa conducts the classic love story on February 26, March 1, 4, 6, and 8, 2025.
On March 23, 26 and 29, 2025, Hankey appears at the Bayerische Staatsoper, singing the role of Octavian in Strauss's comic opera Der Rosenkavalier. Conducted by Vladirmir Jurowski and directed by Barrie Kosky, this is a revival of Munich’s long awaited new production debuted by Samantha Hankey in 2021, and sheds new light on Strauss’s stylized depiction of 18th century Vienna.
Hankey returns to the Bayerische Staatsopher later in the season in her role debut as Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Conducted by Vladirmir Jurowski, performances will be held on June 27, 30, July 4, 6, and 8, 2025.
More About Samantha Hankey
Shining brightly when faced with a complex character, Samantha Hankey has been praised by The Times for a voice of “dusky focus and hypnotic allure.” The 2023-2024 season sparkled with debuts at London's Royal Opera House, singing the role of Dorabella in Così fan tutte; at Detroit Opera, in the role of the Fox in Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen; and in a role debut as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana at Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She returned to Opernhaus Zürich for director Kirill Serebrennikov’s revival of Così fan tutte, where she sang the role of Dorabella; performed as a featured soloist in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski; and appeared in recitals at Antwerp LiedFest and in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Recent seasons saw Hankey as Federico García Lorca in Golijov’s Ainadamar at Scottish Opera, a house debut at Chicago Lyric Opera as Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, a role and house debut as Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande at Santa Fe Opera, a Carnegie Hall recital debut in Weill Recital Hall, and her return to the Metropolitan Opera as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier (broadcast Live in HD).
From 2019-2021, Hankey held a Fest contract at the Bayerische Staatsoper, where she made notable appearances in leading roles. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2017, performing a myriad of named roles in a single season alongside guest contracts at Opernhaus Zürich, Den Norske Opera, The Dallas Opera, and Grand Théâtre de Genève. On the concert stage, she has performed at the Bard Festival, Carnegie Hall, the title role in Handel’s Agrippina in concert with Il Pomo d’Oro in Finland, in solo recital at Wigmore Hall and in New York City at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hankey co-developed the lead roles in David Herzberg’s The Rose Elf and The Wake World, to great critical success. She has also premiered new works with Opera Philadelphia and The Metropolitan Opera.
Samantha Hankey’s career includes awards in a vast number of national and international competitions. In 2018 she won both the First Prize and the Media Prize at the Inaugural Glyndebourne Cup, multiple prizes at the Operalia Competition, and a Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation. She was a 2017 Grand Finals Winner by the Metropolitan Opera National Council, First Prize recipient in the Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition, and received a Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship in the foundation’s final year.
Hankey is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she received both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. A native of Massachusetts, she embraced her passion for music from an early age and pursued pre-college vocal training at the Longy School of Music and the New England Conservatory.
"ALSO IMPRESSIVE WAS HIS DIANA, SAMANTHA HANKEY, THE MOST INGENIOUS & ECONOMICAL ACTOR IN THE COHORT OF TEN SINGERS.
A SQUARE-SHOULDERED BEAUTY WITH A MAPLE-FLAVORED MEZZO,
HANKEY WAS ABLE TO INDICATE WITH ADMIRABLE SUBTLETY WHEN SHE WAS MEANT TO BE THE "REAL" DIANA AND WHEN SHE WAS MEANT TO BE THE GOD GIOVE DISGUISED AS DIANA."
OPERA NEWS
"OF THE LOVERS, SAMANTHA HANKEY MAKES THE BIGGER IMPACT AS A PUNK-ISH ROSINA WHO IS CLEARLY GOING TO BE TOO MUCH OF A HANDFUL FOR HER HAPLESS AND DELUDED GUARDIAN.
SHE SANG WITH POWER & POISE & Held the attention even on a crowded stage."
PLAYS TO SEE
"THE OTHER FEMALE STANDOUT WAS SAMANTHA HANKEY, EQUALLY GRIPPING IN DEEPLY AFFECTING ACCOUNTS OF "PARTO, PARTO," FROM MOZART'S LA CLEMENZA DI TITO AND JOAN'S ARIA FROM TCHAIKOVSKY'S THE MAID OF ORLEANS.
One admired not only the handsomeness of hankey's rich mezzo, but also its power,
A RESOURCE SHE DREW ON ONLY SELECTIVELY TO HEIGHTEN EXPRESSION."
MUSICAL AMERICA
