American Soprano Susan Wheeler is a charismatic opera and concert performer who sings “dripping with musicality” (Choralis). Ms. Wheeler's upcoming performances include a return to The Metropolitan Opera Guild in 2023, covering Elsa in their “Lohengrin Showcase” at Lincoln Center, where she first appeared as Anne Truelove in their “Evolution of the Ingenue” Rake’s Progress performance in 2022, with the Wagner Society of New York as Elsa in Lohengrin, and again reprising Elsa in Lohengrin with Opera Susquehanna. In 2021, Ms. Wheeler also appeared as Chrysothemis (Elektra) with the New York Chamber Music Festival at Symphony Space.
Susan recently made her Carnegie Hall debut (Mozart Requiem, Dvořák Te Deum). In 2019 Susan gave a celebrated concert in Berlin, Germany at the US Embassy in Berlin (Mozart, Charpentier, Lehár), and appeared as guest artist at the Berlin Airlift Memorial Concert with Radio KBB “Fest der Luftbrüke” with the Bundeswehr National Band (My Fair Lady, Glory Denied, Lili Marlene). Internationally, she was also heard as Mimi in La Bohème and as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Mediterranean Opera Festival in Sicily. In 2017 critics celebrated her Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in Tuscany “as nuanced and beautifully sung.”
Ms. Wheeler’s opera performances comprise all three Heroines in Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Augusta Opera); Mimi (Opera Company of Brooklyn); and Valencienne (Annapolis Opera, Maryland Lyric). She also sang Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, the Countess again in Le Nozze di Figaro, Violetta in La Traviata, and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. Her other roles include Elettra (Idomeneo), Strauss’ Arabella, Hanna Glawari and the Verdi heroines Desdemona and Leonora (Il Trovatore).
An Actors Equity actress, Susan has been presented in musicals at The Kennedy Center (Johanna, Sweeney Todd, Journalist, 90 North); Encores! at City Center (Soloist, The New Moon); Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center (A Night of Cabaret); and, in 2017, Christine in Phantom of the Opera at the prestigious Warner Theater.
Ms. Wheeler has been featured on National Public Radio, and Live from the Library of Congress. Susan is a recipient of the Thoman Career Grant, and a winner of The American Prize and the McAllister International and Annapolis Opera Vocal Competitions.
Critics (The Annapolis Capital) praised her performance as Valencienne in The Merry Widow with Annapolis Opera “... the embodiment of youthful zeal, as well as vocal and physical appearance ...And it must be noted, Ms. Wheeler’s skills in dancing the can-can with the ladies of Maxim was none other than outstanding.” Susan is also known for giving uniquely themed concerts at many Washington, DC embassies. She is a student of master teacher Bill Schuman in New York City.