Photograph by Devon Cass
Before Madison Marie McIntosh ever spoke her first words, she sang them.
The mezzo-soprano jokes about how she would embarrass her parents singing operas loudly as a kindergartner. Now, at age 28, she’s performing on stages at Carnegie Hall, the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, the Meyer Amphitheatre and the Rossini Opera Festival.
“My love for music started at home where the Beatles or Pavarotti constantly filled every room. Then came singing the hymns at church and performing in school musicals,” McIntosh says. “Wherever I was, the music followed, and eventually, it grew into my life.”
Born and raised in West Palm Beach, McIntosh, “now goes where the music takes her,” she says. In addition to performing for local stages, she’s played international roles with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy and the New Amsterdam Opera.
McIntosh’s range, flexibility and vocal power allowed her to win first place in competitions such as The American Prize in Vocal Performance in 2020 and the Vienna Summer Music Festival, a move that landed her the role of Prinz Orlofsky in “Die Fledermaus” at the Wiener Kammeroper in Vienna, Austria in 2019.
Her recent performance singing songs from Jeff Shankley’s “Brooklyn to Broadway” received praises from OperaWire for her “rich, operatic lyricism.” “Every time I step out on stage, the moments are surreal and the music becomes timeless. I fall in love with the stories and the characters I’m playing,” McIntosh says.
Being a mezzo-soprano, McIntosh also masters male roles. She’s sung the part of “Hansel” in “Hansel and Gretel” and “Cesare” in “Giulio Cesare in Egitto,” a role she’ll reprise with the Connecticut Lyric Opera this spring. “Learning the techniques and physicality of male acting was an exciting challenge. I had to seem masculine without appearing stiff,” she says.
A graduate from Mannes School of Music, McIntosh credits her skills to the teachers she had, including the legendary soprano Virginia Zeani, her first mentor and opera teacher.
The excitement of a new role is also thrilling, McIntosh says. She’ll perform two additional roles: Cinderella at the Fargo Moorhead Opera this month and Francesca Da Ponte in “Da Ponte” — a premiere concert event at the Westwind Orchard in Accord, New York on June 4. McIntosh plans to keep this kind of momentum as the year continues. “As more live performances are happening again, I look forward to sharing the art form that I love deeply,” she says.