Lincoln Center Debut, 2013
Coloratura Soprano, Juliet Petrus, is respected for her effortless coloratura, and versatile and captivating performances in the world of opera, concert, and recital, a trusted and sought-after interpreter of both standard and contemporary Chinese vocal repertoire on three continents.
Juliet will begin 2023 with thrilling performances of A Salute to Vienna, New Year's concerts in both Costa Mesa, CA, as well as Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall, followed by her debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra singing new repertoire in Mandarin under the baton of Maestro Lio Kuokman (HK Phil) at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and then a return to Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center.
The 2022 Season marked an anticipated return to the stage with the Florentine Opera in the US singing the roles of Le Feu, La Princesse, Le Rossignol in L’enfant et les sortiléges, as well as La Fée in Viardot’s Cendrillon. She is also honoured to be part of the musical team bringing to life the new chamber opera, Southern Crossings in June 2022 in New York City.
In May 2021, Juliet was fortunate to return to the stage in Chongqing, China, appearing in the debut concert of the Chongqing Festival Orchestra, with tenor, FAN Jingma, also appearing in recital in Shanghai and Chongqing in June 2020. She appeared as Hannchen in Der Vetter aus Dingsda at Stadttheater Baden in Baden bei Wien, Austria, adapted to an online workshop due to Covid performance restrictions. Also at Stadttheater Baden she portrayed Blondchen in Entführung aus dem Serail in 2019. Other recent operatic credits include Aricie in Hippolyte et Aricie with Ensemble OrQuesta for the Grimeborn Festival, for which she was lauded for exuding ‘a purity, both vocally and dramatically.’
Prior to theater closings in 2020, she sang multiple performances of Die Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte with Hamburger Kammeroper in Germany, a role she has also sung with Austin Lyric Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago Opera in the Neighborhoods in the United States. Juliet frequently appears as the soprano soloist for Carmina Burana, having sung the work with the St. Louis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Alabama Symphony and in Suzhou, China. Other recent credits include Gilda in Rigoletto in concert in Shanghai, China, the soprano soloist in Mozart’s C-Minor Mass (Bach Society of St. Louis), Galatea in Acis and Galatea (Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis), the soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria and Händel’s Te deum (Music of the Baroque, Chicago), and La Musica in Christopher Alden’s production of L’Orfeo (Glimmerglass Opera), with Michigan Opera Theater, at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Pritzker Pavilion and Symphony Center in Chicago, Herbst Theater in San Francisco, and with the Shanghai Symphony. Juliet was awarded the 2nd Prize in the Silver Associazione Cuturale International Singing Competition in Empoli, Italy in 2017.
In addition to her work in standard repertoire, Juliet is recognized as the leading Western interpreter of contemporary Chinese vocal literature, a frequently invited guest in concert halls and on television in China. Juliet completed a ten-city solo recital and masterclass tour of China with pianist Lydia Qiu in 2018-19. The team also released Juliet's first solo CD, A Great Distance: A Collection of Chinese and American Art Song with Ms. Qiu on the MSR Classics label in 2015, for which Juliet received a City of Chicago Artist Grant to complete. In 2020, she co-authored Singing in Mandarin: A Guide to Chinese Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire, published by Rowman and Littlefield. This has led to Juliet lecturing to conservatories and educators across the US and Europe in an effort to bring recognition to non-Western contributions to classical music. Also in 2020, she was recognized by the National Confucius Institute of the United States for her contribution to cross-cultural relations with their prestigious 'People to People Award.' She was a Confucius Institute scholarship recipient to study Chinese language at Tongji University in Shanghai in 2014 and a member of the iSING! International Young Artist Program in Beijing in 2011 and 2012, which began her love affair with Chinese music and culture.
Juliet was a founding member of the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, devoted to the education and performance of art song. She served as a teaching artist for both Lyric Opera of Chicago and City Colleges of Chicago from 2008-2016. She proudly helped pilot Music for the Mind (now Bridging Memory Through Music™) with the Institute for Therapy through the Arts in Evanston, IL, which engaged early-stage Alzheimer's and dementia patients with live musical performance and conversation as therapy, leading not only to an improved quality of life, but notable cognitive improvement by participants. She holds degrees in voice performance from the Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, where she also studied viola performance, working as a professional violist for over a decade. She sat principal violist with various Detroit-metro area orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra under the baton of the both Leslie Dunner and Joseph Stiplin. Juliet was the violist in string quartets which placed 1st in chamber music competitions in her home state of Michigan for two years running, also earning an invitation to the prestigious Fischoff Chamber Music competition, as well as invitation to play at the White House in Washington, DC. She has recently returned to playing after a number of year hiatus due to her travel for singing, where she is joining various orchestras around London. She studied piano since the age of 3. She began in theater as a musical theater choreographer. In addition to her performing and writing, Juliet, a polyglot, has over twenty years of experience as an educator and loves sharing her knowledge and passion for music and foreign languages with students worldwide. She is currently based in London where she recently began her doctoral studies at the Royal College of Music, where she is honoured to be the holder of an RCM Studentship.
Juliet will begin 2023 with thrilling performances of A Salute to Vienna, New Year's concerts in both Costa Mesa, CA, as well as Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall, followed by her debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra singing new repertoire in Mandarin under the baton of Maestro Lio Kuokman (HK Phil) at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and then a return to Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center.
The 2022 Season marked an anticipated return to the stage with the Florentine Opera in the US singing the roles of Le Feu, La Princesse, Le Rossignol in L’enfant et les sortiléges, as well as La Fée in Viardot’s Cendrillon. She is also honoured to be part of the musical team bringing to life the new chamber opera, Southern Crossings in June 2022 in New York City.
In May 2021, Juliet was fortunate to return to the stage in Chongqing, China, appearing in the debut concert of the Chongqing Festival Orchestra, with tenor, FAN Jingma, also appearing in recital in Shanghai and Chongqing in June 2020. She appeared as Hannchen in Der Vetter aus Dingsda at Stadttheater Baden in Baden bei Wien, Austria, adapted to an online workshop due to Covid performance restrictions. Also at Stadttheater Baden she portrayed Blondchen in Entführung aus dem Serail in 2019. Other recent operatic credits include Aricie in Hippolyte et Aricie with Ensemble OrQuesta for the Grimeborn Festival, for which she was lauded for exuding ‘a purity, both vocally and dramatically.’
Prior to theater closings in 2020, she sang multiple performances of Die Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte with Hamburger Kammeroper in Germany, a role she has also sung with Austin Lyric Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago Opera in the Neighborhoods in the United States. Juliet frequently appears as the soprano soloist for Carmina Burana, having sung the work with the St. Louis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Alabama Symphony and in Suzhou, China. Other recent credits include Gilda in Rigoletto in concert in Shanghai, China, the soprano soloist in Mozart’s C-Minor Mass (Bach Society of St. Louis), Galatea in Acis and Galatea (Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis), the soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria and Händel’s Te deum (Music of the Baroque, Chicago), and La Musica in Christopher Alden’s production of L’Orfeo (Glimmerglass Opera), with Michigan Opera Theater, at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Pritzker Pavilion and Symphony Center in Chicago, Herbst Theater in San Francisco, and with the Shanghai Symphony. Juliet was awarded the 2nd Prize in the Silver Associazione Cuturale International Singing Competition in Empoli, Italy in 2017.
In addition to her work in standard repertoire, Juliet is recognized as the leading Western interpreter of contemporary Chinese vocal literature, a frequently invited guest in concert halls and on television in China. Juliet completed a ten-city solo recital and masterclass tour of China with pianist Lydia Qiu in 2018-19. The team also released Juliet's first solo CD, A Great Distance: A Collection of Chinese and American Art Song with Ms. Qiu on the MSR Classics label in 2015, for which Juliet received a City of Chicago Artist Grant to complete. In 2020, she co-authored Singing in Mandarin: A Guide to Chinese Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire, published by Rowman and Littlefield. This has led to Juliet lecturing to conservatories and educators across the US and Europe in an effort to bring recognition to non-Western contributions to classical music. Also in 2020, she was recognized by the National Confucius Institute of the United States for her contribution to cross-cultural relations with their prestigious 'People to People Award.' She was a Confucius Institute scholarship recipient to study Chinese language at Tongji University in Shanghai in 2014 and a member of the iSING! International Young Artist Program in Beijing in 2011 and 2012, which began her love affair with Chinese music and culture.
Juliet was a founding member of the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, devoted to the education and performance of art song. She served as a teaching artist for both Lyric Opera of Chicago and City Colleges of Chicago from 2008-2016. She proudly helped pilot Music for the Mind (now Bridging Memory Through Music™) with the Institute for Therapy through the Arts in Evanston, IL, which engaged early-stage Alzheimer's and dementia patients with live musical performance and conversation as therapy, leading not only to an improved quality of life, but notable cognitive improvement by participants. She holds degrees in voice performance from the Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, where she also studied viola performance, working as a professional violist for over a decade. She sat principal violist with various Detroit-metro area orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra under the baton of the both Leslie Dunner and Joseph Stiplin. Juliet was the violist in string quartets which placed 1st in chamber music competitions in her home state of Michigan for two years running, also earning an invitation to the prestigious Fischoff Chamber Music competition, as well as invitation to play at the White House in Washington, DC. She has recently returned to playing after a number of year hiatus due to her travel for singing, where she is joining various orchestras around London. She studied piano since the age of 3. She began in theater as a musical theater choreographer. In addition to her performing and writing, Juliet, a polyglot, has over twenty years of experience as an educator and loves sharing her knowledge and passion for music and foreign languages with students worldwide. She is currently based in London where she recently began her doctoral studies at the Royal College of Music, where she is honoured to be the holder of an RCM Studentship.