Dramatic soprano Maria King has a voice of great beauty and surprising power. While this young singer's voice is especially suited to the repertoire of Strauss and Wagner, she also sings Verdi, Mozart, Puccini, Weber, Massenet,and others, as well as challenging art songs by composers Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, Faure, Granados, Debussy, and Wolf, among others. She currently resides in New York, where she studies with esteemed voice instructor Judith Natalucci.

A native of Los Angeles, Ms. King holds a BA in Music from Columbia University, where she was awarded the Irving Berlin Charitable Scholarship for Music and the Performing Arts (1996, 1997). She also studied at the Manhattan School of Music and at the University of Florence, where she developed her facility in Italian language and pursued an interest in Italian poetry and literature. Her roles include Composer in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos (Black Hills Vocal Arts Institute, Spearfish, South Dakota, 2005); Giorgetta in Il Tabarro, Chrysothemis in Elektra, Gutrune in Goetterdaemmerung, and Elisabetta in Don Carlo (New York Opera Forum, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2007); and Donna Elvira in Mozart's Don Giovanni and Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin, both performed in 2004 with Operesque Classical Concerts (New York). Upcoming projects include Countess in le Nozze di Figaro and Alice Ford in Falstaff (both 2008).

Ms. King has worked with highly regarded musical professionals, including directors Johanna Meier, Louisa Jonason, and Bruce Donnell; maestro Richard Nechamkin; coaches Jerry Brown, Kosta Popovic, and Janis Eckhart; and pianists Kelly Horsted, Jerry Brown, Daniel Beliavsky, Greg Schreiner and Noby Ishida. Her voice teachers have also included Gail Gordon and Ted Puffer. She has performed with Opera Nova (Los Angeles) and gives private concerts and recitals in the United States and Europe. Ms. King speaks French, Italian and German.