Who is Angel Blue? All about the Grammy-winning American soprano with a heavenly voice

3 July 2024, 12:51 | Updated: 3 July 2024, 14:55

Get to know the international opera star whose life changed at the age of four, when she saw a soprano on stage for the first time.

Angel Blue is an American soprano from Los Angeles, California. She has performed on many of the best stages and sung in many of the best opera houses around the world.

Her singing voice has been recognised for its shining high notes and agility, smoky and rich middle register, beautiful timbre, and versatility, able to switch from a classical to a contemporary sound with ease.

At 40 years old, she has won some of the most coveted awards in the music industry and been a featured soloist with legendary companies like The Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera, English National Opera, and Teatro alla Scala.

So who is this star soprano, how did she get started, and where is she now?

What is Angel Blue’s background?

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Blue was drawn to music – and opera specifically – at a very young age. She told Classic FM about her first experience with opera, which changed her life forever.

“When I was four years old, my parents took me to see Turandot. I’m one of five children, and my parents decided to take me,” she said. “Of course, at four years old, I didn’t know it was a stage... I just saw this gorgeous woman in this beautiful light, and I looked at my dad, and I said, ‘Dad, I want to be like the lady in the light.’

“And he smiled at me and said, ‘Angel, you can absolutely be the woman in the light.’ And I’ve always had that in my heart. And that woman, the lady in the light, has always, in some way, guided me on my path to opera.”

As a teenager, she attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where she studied classical voice and piano. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Redlands in 2005, followed by a Master of Music degree from UCLA in 2007, both in Opera Performance. She then became a member of the selective Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program at Los Angeles Opera from 2007 to 2009. For the following year, Blue was a member of the Artistas de la Academia del Palau de les Arts, an opera training program led by Rossini specialist Alberto Zedda, from 2009 to 2010.

Her early exposure to classical music and vast experience in various training programmes propelled her into an international career, which still shines brightly today.

Opera star Angel Blue and the moment that made her want to become a singer

What roles has Angel Blue sung?

While still a young artist at LA Opera, Blue made her professional debut with the San Francisco Opera Company as Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in the 2008-2009 season. Since then, she has gone on to sing Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata, both Musetta and Mimì in Puccini’s La bohème, Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen, Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Helena in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Liu in Puccini’s Turandot, Contessa Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and many others.

This summer, she will sing the title role in Puccini’s Tosca at the Royal Opera House in London. Watch her incredibly moving performance of Tosca’s iconic ‘Vissi d’arte’ below to get a glimpse of her musical magic in action.

Angel Blue - Puccini: Vissi d'arte (The Frederick R. Koch Foundation's Townhouse Series)

Where has Angel Blue performed?

With a career every bit as dazzling as her high notes, the better question might be – where hasn’t Angel Blue performed?

The iconic venues where her legendary vibrato has reverberated throughout the halls include Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, London’s Royal Opera House and Coliseum, Carnegie Hall, Vienna State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and many, many others.

She has performed as a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Israeli Philharmonic, Korean Symphony Orchestra Germany, Santa Barbara Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the American Symphony Orchestra.

She credits London as being one of the most formative cities in her ‘big break’:

“I love singing in London... My very first opportunity to work in London happened at the English National Opera, where I was singing Musetta in 2013,” she said. “I’m very thankful to be here because over the last 11 years [in London], I’ve had the opportunity to see my career grow, and a lot of that is due to the fact that I was hired here in London first.

“I was given a lot of opportunities, and I want to encourage you that, when you are given the opportunity – grab onto it, hold onto it and keep your faith and move forward.”

Read more: From beauty queen to opera singer: soprano Angel Blue feels 'happy and blessed'

What awards has Angel Blue won?

In 2009, at just 25, Blue was a finalist in Operalia, one of the world’s leading global opera competitions. She received first place in the zarzuela division (a Spanish genre incorporating spoken and sung scenes), and second place in the opera division. She has also received prestigious awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s Emerging Young Entertainers Award, and the Redlands Bowl Competition.

In 2020, she won the coveted Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera, which recognises extraordinarily gifted singers with rising Met careers, in honour of legendary soprano Beverly Sills. In 2021, she won the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for the Metropolitan Opera production of Porgy and Bess in the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.

In 2022, she won the Richard Tucker Award, which recognises a single performer who has reached a high level of artistic accomplishment and is on the threshold of a major international career. In 2023, she won the Grammy for Best Opera Recording again, for the Metropolitan Opera production of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

Who is Angel Blue’s family?

Angel Blue married her husband, Adam Mielke, a computer programmer, in 2016. Blue told Seattle Opera that, for their wedding, she wore a costume she’d worn whilst performing in the opera Mefistofele at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, Germany.

The couple live in New Jersey with their 13-year-old son.

Throughout all of her accomplishments, she still remembers four-year-old Angel, and her connection to ‘the lady in the light’.

“She just looked radiant to me, and she also looked happy,” she said. “And then I looked at my dad, and his smile was just this huge, beautiful smile. And everybody was joyous. Everybody was happy. And when I get on stage and perform, that’s what I feel today.

“And I live for that. I live for that excitement and that enjoyment. And I hope that when people come to the opera for those hours, that they feel that same thing that I felt when I was a little girl.”