Olivia Prendergast

Soprano Olivia Prendergast is hailed as “a name to look for on the posters of the world’s great opera houses in the near future” by The San Francisco Classical Voice.

Olivia is currently based in Philadelphia, PA, but don’t be fooled by the brotherly love – Philly’s not always sunny, but it’s always “Gritty”.

In the 23/24 season, Olivia joins Opera Theatre of St. Louis covering Cleopatra (Julius Caesar) and Marie de’Medici (Galileo Galilei). She also made her debut with Livermore Valley Opera Company as Pamina in their outreach production of The Magic Flute. Equally comfortable as a choral artist, she substitutes regularly with The Crossing, premiering David Lang’s new major work, poor hymnal in December, and Harold Meltzer’s You Are Who I Love with Sandbox Percussion in March. Olivia performs with the East Passyunk Opera Project (ePOP for short!) in their Italian opera extravaganza at Reading Terminal, singing selections from La traviata as Violetta, Rigoletto as Gilda, and Lakmé as Lakmé.

In her second season with the Merola Opera Program, she performed as Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten. For the Merola Grand Finale, she sang a flirtatious zarzuela duet as Carolina (Louisa Fernanda), and in the Act 1 sextet as Zerlina (Don Giovanni). She previously sang with Merola in 2022 as First Spirit and covered Papagena in their full production of Die Zauberflöte. Olivia also crooned oldies with Craig Terry, and joyfully explored the French repertoire in Merola’s Grand Finale as Juliette (Roméo et Juliette) and Frasquita (Carmen) with “outstanding projection” (The Classical Voice, San Francisco) on the stage of the San Francisco Opera.

She sang many times with the opera theater at Indiana University, most notably as Margarita Xirgu (Ainadamar), Romilda (Xerxes), and Lisette (La rondine). While still an undergraduate at Northwestern University, she performed in the Chicago premiere of Dog Days as Lisa, as well as a frisky Adele (Die Fledermaus) and Flora (The Turn of the Screw).

An avid believer in the beauty of contemporary music, Olivia seeks out modern chamber works, most recently premiering as Joan in In Her Own Words: Joan of Arc Speaks, a new chamber work by New York City composer Graciela Carriqui. She also sang with Alan Pierson as the soloists in the Midwestern premiere of Letters Made with Gold (Jaeger) and Tehillim (Reich). Pairing with her love of modern classical works, Olivia also adores early music. While at Indiana University, she also frequented the concert stage, singing as soprano soloist in Vesperae solennes de confessore (Mozart), Die Dönner-Ode (Telemann), and Weihnachts-Historie (Schütz) with conductor Dana Marsh in the Historical Peroformance Institute. She frequently appeared with the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project as soloist for BWV 61: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland and BWV 97: In allen meinen Taten, where she was praised for her particularly vibrant Bach interpretations.

In 2023, Olivia placed 2nd in the Midwest Regional Round in The Metropolitan Opera National Laffont Competition and placed 4th in The Orpheus Competition. She won the Tennessee District of the Laffont Competition in 2022 and received an encouragement award in 2021.