Soprano Rachel Mikol makes her debut this season as Gilda (cover) in Rigoletto with St. Petersburg Opera and as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel with City Lyric Opera.
She returned to Opera Saratoga in Summer 2019 to perform the role of Sandman in Hänsel und Gretel and cover the title role of Marie in La fille du régiment. Mikol was recently a Festival Artist with Opera Saratoga and a Herndon Foundation Emerging Artist with Virginia Opera.
Recent roles include Frasquita in Carmen with Opéra Louisiane, Anne Egerman in Sondheim's A Little Night Music with Opera Ithaca, and Mary Bailey in the collegiate premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's It's a Wonderful Life.
On the concert stage, Mikol was a frequent soloist and member of NOTUS: IU Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, a soloist with the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, the soprano soloist in Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 52, and soloist in Handel's Messiah. In November 2019, Mikol was featured as the soprano soloist in the Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem with the Burnt Hills Oratorio Society and in December 2019, she was the featured soloist for "JoAnn's Classical Christmas" with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Maestra JoAnn Falletta.
A native of Buffalo, New York, Mikol earned her Bachelor of Music in Performance and Education from Ithaca College and her Master of Music in Performance and a Performer Diploma in Voice from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. She studied at Ithaca College with Dawn Pierce and at Indiana University with Mary Ann Hart.