Jennifer Blades

Stage Director

A member of the Opera Department since 1999, Jennifer Blades has directed three Opera Outreach shows (Hansel and Gretel, Papageno! and Little Red Riding Hood), several of the newly composed Opera Etudes, and assisted with various Opera Workshop scenes. A singer by day, Ms. Blades has been hailed as having a “juicy” and “colorful” tone as well as a “flair for comic mugging” by The Baltimore Sun. Her repertoire includes Dinah (Trouble in Tahiti), the Mother (Amahl and the Night Visitors), Dorabella, Donna Elvira, Narciso (Agrippina), Valencienne (Merry Widow), Tessa (Gondoliers), Sorceress (Dido and Aeneas), and Second Nursemaid (Street Scene).

Ms. Blades will be seen in January and February with the Bach Concert Series in Cantatas 22 ands 75. An avid cabaret singer, she will open a new show at An die Musik in February, entitled My Funny Valentine. In April, she takes on the role of Public Opinion in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld with Opera Vivente under the direction of John Bowen and JoAnn Kulesza. In May she will join the Anne Arundel Community College Choir as the mezzo soloist in the Mozart Requiem. Peabody audiences will see her work again in the spring when she joins Roger Brunyate to direct the Opera Etudes.

Ms. Blades received a Masters of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory. She is also sings with Baltimore Opera, manages and sings with the Mt. Vernon Voices (a caroling quartet), runs the Baltimore Chamber Jazz Society, and is a faculty member of Anne Arundel Community College. In her spare time, she tries to spend time with her utterly supportive husband and her two sons, ages 12 and 3.