American soprano Melissa Davis is a frequent performer of operatic, concert and musical theatre repertoire. She has performed numerous light lyric coloratura soprano roles in the United States and has also made appearances at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria and the Asian International Opera Festival, in Taipei, Taiwan. Notable roles include Amy (Little Women), Pamina (Magic Flute), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Hermia (The Fairy Queen), Sophie (Werther), Abigail (The Crucible), Lucy (The Telephone), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Mabel (Pirates of Penzance), Josephine (HMS Pinafore), Yum-Yum (Mikado), Katherine McGowan (Titanic), Jenny (Company), Nellie Forbush (South Pacific), Rapunzel (Into the Woods), and Anna Held (Tintypes).

Her devotion to the genre of art song has led to a great deal of research and performance of American art song repertoire. She has recently performed major song works of Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom, André Previn, and Jake Heggie. She recently premiered Sebastian Birch’s Three Songs from “Orpheus & Echo,” which were dedicated to her. She is thrilled to be premiering a new work by acclaimed composer Jake Heggie in 2022, titled Could it be Madness, This? on the poems of Emily Dickinson.

Ms. Davis is the creator and Artistic Director of Nightingale Opera Theatre. Since the inception of the company in 2012 she has been working to create performance opportunities for local musicians and to provide artistic and accessible opera to Northeast Ohio audiences. She has produced several operas including: Street Scene (Kurt Weill) Werther (Massenet), The Scarf (Hoiby), Orpheus and Euridice (Gordon), Hansel and Gretel (Humperdinck), Elixir of Love (Donizetti), Little Women (Adamo), and The Consul (Menotti). She has created and produced several Young Artist programs as well as an opera program for young children called Little Nightingales.

She received a Bachelor of Music degree and a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from Kent State University. She received a second Master of Arts degree in Vocal Pedagogy along with a Singing Health Specialization Certificate from The Ohio State University. Specific areas of research include Vocal Health, Voice Disorders and Performance Anxiety. She served on the voice faculty at Kent State University for ten years where she enjoyed teaching classes in Vocal Pedagogy, Song Literature and Diction, while maintaining a large voice studio.

She is currently a PhD candidate in performance at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. She also maintains her position as Artistic Director of Nightingale Opera Theatre in the United States.