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Praised for her “note perfect and thrilling” performances (Saratoga Times Union) as well as her “captivating” (Pittsburgh in the Round) and “exquisitely plush” voice (Boston Performing Arts Examiner), rising star soprano Natalie Polito is enjoying a busy career on the country’s finest opera and concert stages. In May of 2023, Ms. Polito made her triumphant role debut (at seven months pregnant!) as Lady Macbeth with Resonance Works Pittsburgh, presented as part of the 2023 Opera America Conference. In the Fall of 2022, she was honored to return to Resonance Works to perform the roles of the Mother/Gangster/Prosecutor in White Snake Projects' poignant new immigration opera, I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams by Jorge Sosa and Cerise Lim Jacobs.
In November of 2021, she made her role debut as Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore with Houston's Opera in the Heights, rescheduled from the 2020 pandemic season. She was scheduled to make several other exciting debuts during the 2020 season (canceled due to Covid-19), including her role and company debut as Fiordiligi in Pacific Opera Project's innovative new production of Cosi fan tutte at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. She also appeared as Giorgetta in Barn Opera's film production of Puccini's Il Tabarro.
Ms. Polito recently made her Carnegie Hall debut as Soprano Soloist in the Beethoven Choral Fantasy, presented by Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY). She has been heard in her signature, show stopping role of the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute with Opera Saratoga, Houston’s Opera in the Heights, the Erie Chamber Orchestra, and under the baton of Martin Katz with the Master Players Concert Series in Delaware. Called "a revelation as Violetta" by The Patriot Ledger, Ms. Polito is also quickly establishing herself as a young Verdi soprano to watch, with performances as Violetta with both Opera Providence and First Coast Opera in St. Augustine, FL, in addition to her highly acclaimed 2021 debut as Leonora in Houston. Other past performance highlights include her role debut as Nedda in I Pagliacci with Boheme Opera New Jersey, her role debut as the Foreign Princess in Rusalka with Resonance Works Pittsburgh, her Opera Columbus house debut as Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, First Lady in The Magic Flute with Virginia Opera, Musetta in La Boheme at both the Green Mountain Opera Festival in Vermont and Opera in the Heights in Houston, her LoftOpera and NYC debut as Alice in Le Comte Ory, and performances with the Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota Opera, the Colorado Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, Stamford Symphony, Lake Placid Sinfonietta, and her international debut in concert at the National Academy of Music in Hanoi, Vietnam.
A highly skilled interpreter of new classical works, Ms. Polito has had the honor of performing in several world premiere operas, including as the lead role of Nancy Shedman in Larry Bell’s Holy Ghosts at the Berklee Performance Center, in Joseph Summer's The Tempest with The Shakespeare Concerts (Boston), and with Intermezzo Chamber Opera as The Girl in James Yannatos’s Rocket’s Red Blare and as Isabella Stuart Gardner (cover) in A Place of Beauty. In 2018, she joined Opera Fayetteville as a featured artist for their Contemporary Opera Festival, Opera in Bloom, performing pop-up concerts and staged micro operas throughout the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas. During the 2020 pandemic season, she was featured in filmed performances of Peter Hilliard and Matt Boresi's comic opera Verdi by Vegetables and their "Songs from the Supermarket Bulletin Board", Buyer Beware. She is a frequent collaborator with NYC-based composer and pianist, Felix Jarrar, in performances of his original compositions and operas, including a world premiere to be announced in 2024.
As a member of Virginia Opera's highly selective Emerging Artist Program from 2012-2013, Ms. Polito made her Virginia Opera debut as the First Bridesmaid and Countess (cover) in Le nozze di Figaro, Stella (cover) in A Streetcar Named Desire, and as Gretel in over 75 performances of a touring production of Hansel and Gretel. Ms. Polito joined the Santa Fe Opera's prestigious Apprentice Singer Program during the summer of 2011, where she covered Kitty in The Last Savage and Marie in Wozzeck and was heard on the mainstage in scenes from Flight and Idomeneo. Ms. Polito is also an alumna of the Sarasota Opera Apprentice Program, where she covered the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, and of the 2009 Studio Artist Program of Opera New Jersey, where she covered Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Ms. Polito was a 2018 Finalist in Opera Ithaca’s Edward M. Murray International Competition of Voice, the 2015 winner of the Mario Lanza and Elaine Malbin Vocal Competition in New York City, the 2011 recipient of the Santa Fe Opera’s Lillian Caroff Mayer award, and the winner of the 2010 Sarasota Opera Guild Special Artist Award.
She holds an M.M. in Vocal Performance from The Boston Conservatory and a B.M. in Vocal Performance with Honors from Northwestern University, and is currently a J.D. candidate at Seton Hall University School of Law, where she combines her passions for music and social justice.
A Chicago native, she currently resides in Newark, New Jersey with her husband, baritone Jeremiah Johnson, beloved daughter Lola, and rescue kittens Molly & Arthur.
