Described as “A sight and sound to behold” by the Boston Globe, Mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero is pleased to be joining the Santa Fe Opera in 2022 in one of her signature roles, Mistress Quickly in Falstaff. She will also be heard in the title role in Thomas Albert’s Lizbeth with Opera Orlando, as well as soloist in Verdi Requiem for the Defiant Requiem Foundation in Strathmore. Ms. Quintero opened her 2021-22 season with the role of Madame Flora in The Medium with Chelsea Opera, where she also enjoyed a successful run as the inimitable Julia Child in Lee Hoiby’s Bon Appétit! in June 2021. In November 2021 she performed as soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Santa Fe Symphony.
Known especially for her performances of Verdi and Baroque works, Ms. Quintero enjoys a career on the operatic and concert stage where her rich voice has been praised for “warm, honeyed tones” (Baltimore Sun) and “a beautiful color performed with full ease” (ConcertoNet) in portrayals of characters ranging from Amneris and Azucena to Mistress Quickly and The Old Lady in Candide.
Her previous work has included many enjoyable turns with Boston Baroque singing their annual Messiah as well as performances of Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9., M. Haydn’s Requiem in C minor, Cornelia in Giulio Cesare, Juditha in Juditha Triumphans, and Storgé in Jephtha.
Quintero also enjoys a rewarding relationship with the Defiant Requiem Foundation, performing their powerful presentation of the Verdi Requiem in Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín. She has performed the piece with Mo. Murry Sidlin over a dozen times throughout the U.S., sharing the story of Rafael Schächter and the brave artists of Terezín. In addition, she has also performed the piece Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezín Composer, a program of music composed at Terezín.
The mezzo-soprano has performed the Verdi Requiem with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Cathedral Choral Society Washington D.C., Brevard Music Center, Berkshire Choral International, Southwest Florida Symphony, the South Bend Symphony, and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, with whom she also performed de Falla’s El amor brujo.
Her recent roles include Azucena (Il trovatore) at both Musica Viva Hong Kong and Opéra Royal de Wallonie; Amneris (Aida) with Annapolis Opera; Mistress Quickly (Falstaff) with Virginia Opera, Opera Delaware and Opéra de Lausanne; Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera) with Austin Lyric Opera, Suor Pazienza (Giordano’s Mese Mariano) with the Spoleto Festival (USA), Mary (Der fliegende Holländer) and Hippolyta (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) with Boston Lyric Opera; and The Old Lady (Candide) with Arizona and Portland Operas.
Quintero made her international operatic debut with New Israeli Opera as La Haine in Gluck’s Armide and returned to the company as Marquise Melibea (Il viaggio a Reims). She sang Baba the Turk (The Rake’s Progress) with Angers Nantes Opera; Olga Olsen (Street Scene) with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; Isabella (L’italiana in Algeri) with Palm Beach Opera; Gertrude (Roméo et Juliette) with Toledo Opera; and Glaša (Kátya Kabanová) and Teresa (La sonnambula) with The Santa Fe Opera. Other roles include Auntie in Peter Grimes, Tisbe in La Cenerentola, and Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte with Washington National Opera.
Quintero is a 2006 winner of the Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation; second place winner of the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation International Vocal Competition; the George London Foundation; Sullivan Foundation and was an Operalia semi-finalist. She sang at the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors Inaugural Awards Concert in 2008. She was a 2002 Grand National Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and made her first appearance on the Met stage in the Grand Finals Concert with Julius Rudel.
Like everyone, the pandemic left Ann with an embarrassment of time, so she followed the crowd and turned to baking sourdough and learning to play the ukulele. She also earned her certification as a yoga instructor and did a deep dive into learning more about social justice. Ann turned to her linguistic nerdery as a form of income and mental fitness through editing, proofreading, and some copywriting work. She fostered a wonderful pit bull named Ella and will provide more photos than you need upon request.
After such a long time away, she’s champing at the bit to make music with people again. “There’s nothing like the magic that occurs when people resonate together in the same room. Let’s make a ruckus together soon!”
“Mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero needed no onstage warmup to inhabit Jephtha’s wife, Storge, imparting luminous significance to individual words through subtle vocal swells. The rage air she flung at Jephtha was also a sight and sound to behold, her chest voice ripping through the orchestra.” – Zoë Madonna, Boston Globe
“As Storge, Ann McMahon Quintero’s loamy mezzo-soprano embraced mourning like a down duvet in her first aria sending Jephtha off to war… Her rage and haunted incomprehension of injustice charged through with Azucena amplitude in her third.” – CJ Ru, Boston Musical Intelligencer
“Quintero was terrific. She was funny and sassy, and her voice was equal parts opera diva and blues singer.” – Cathalena E. Burch, Arizona Daily Star
“Ann McMahon Quintero delivered the goods and was terrific as Cunegonde’s companion with a trail of woes of her own.” – Herbert Paine, Broadway World Opera
“Ann McMahon Quintero sang her Klezmer-infused tango with smoky tones and garnered quite a few laughs with her antics. Her dance to Amy Beth Frankel’s capable choreography was most amusing.” – Maria Nockin, Opera Today
“Alice Ford and … Meg Page tended to be seen sitting in a row sipping tea with Ann McMahon Quintero’s Mistress Quickly (who traveled through the show trundling her ubiquitous tea caddy). Their timing was splendid and their conniving delicious.” – Joan Reinthaler, Washington Post
“Though these three roles are not huge, they’re nicely realized by three female vocalists who also possess an excellent sense of comic timing.” – Terry Ponick, Washington Times
“As the nun (and Carmela’s cherished childhood friend) Suor Pazienza, Ann McMahon Quintero’s rich and dusky mezzo was especially pleasing; so was her compassionate acting.” – Lindsay Koob, Charleston City Paper
“Sister Pazienza [is] Ann McMahon Quintero in handsome voice.” – George Loomis, Musical America
“…Rowley wasn’t the only one who could sing and act well. The entire cast of “Mese Mariano,” from the nuns — especially Mother Superior (Linda Roark-Strummer) and Suor Pazienza (Ann McMahon Quintero) … did their jobs impeccably.” – Adam Parker, The Post and Courier
“Mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero, as Amneris, delivered a fully nuanced portrayal, alternately sensuously cooing in warm, honeyed tones and soaring regally in her outrage at Radames’ attraction to Aida. In her Act III duet with Radames, Quintero was spellbinding and dramatically compelling as she pleaded with and berated him in her futile attempts to persuade him to love her and live.” – Mary Johnson, Baltimore Sun
“The spare, terse structure of the Requiem Canticles builds around fragments of the traditional Requiem text, viewed like shards from antiquity in a coolly focused modern light. In the solo bits, bass-baritone Miller came into his own, he and mezzo Ann McMahon Quintero making their points with somber intensity…To illustrate the variety of what Stravinsky wrote between Zvezdoliki and the Canticles, Botstein next chose Mavra (1922), a brief adventure into comic opera … Mezzos Quintero and Heather Johnson registered gossipy cameos as the girl’s Mother and a Neighbor.” – John W. Freeman, Opera News
“Regarding the quartet of gossip, we will remember first the Mistress Quickly of Ann McMahon Quintero, with a beautiful color performed with full ease.” – Emmanuel Andrieu, ConcertoNet
“And what to say about the Azucena of the American mezzo, Ann McMahon Quintero? In turn loving and sensitive, fierce and provocative, raw but generous, served by a haunting timbre throughout the tessiture, she will remain the true revelation of a show noted for its effectiveness.” – Serge Martin, Le Soir (Belgium)
“What a beautiful discovery is the American mezzo Ann McMahon Quintero! She rose to the challenge of this role, and God knows Azucena is a moment that matters in a young career. McMahon is a product of the formidable American school. Physically opulent and radiant, with a superbly expressive face, the voice is made of fine material, and carries well…” – Philippe Ponthir, ForumOpera
“Also excellent was mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero, whose Azucena has the right amount of darkness and never becomes a caricature.” – Nicolas Blanmont, La Libre
“Ann McMahon Quintero gave Azucena vocal and dramatic power.” – Erna Metdepenninghen, Opera Magazine