American soprano Melissa Davis is a frequent performer of operatic, concert, and musical theatre repertoire, with appearances across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Praised for her versatility and light lyric coloratura voice, she has performed a wide range of operatic roles across repertoire from the great lyric tradition to contemporary premieres.

In the great lyric and coloratura tradition, she has sung Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Sophie (Werther), and Adele (Die Fledermaus).

Her work in contemporary American and British opera spans both modern classics and 21st-century works, including Abigail (The Crucible), Lucy (The Telephone), Krysia (Two Remain), Anne (To Hell and Back), Cricket (Pinocchio), and Alice (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland).

She has also brought her comic flair to Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, performing Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance), Josephine (HMS Pinafore), and Yum-Yum (The Mikado).

A devoted interpreter of American art song, Davis has performed major works by Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom, André Previn, and Jake Heggie. She premiered Sebastian Birch’s Three Songs from “Orpheus & Echo”, written for her, and in 2022 gave the world premiere of Jake Heggie’s Could it be Madness, This? (Emily Dickinson poems). She released the premiere recording of the cycle on the MSR Classics label in 2023. Her discography also includes Glass Ceilings: Song Cycles of Jake Heggie (2021), both with pianist Jerry Wong.

Davis is the founder and Artistic Director of Nightingale Opera Theatre (USA), which she established in 2012 to create performance opportunities for local artists and present accessible opera to Northeast Ohio audiences. Under her leadership, the company has produced a wide range of works including Street Scene, Werther, The Scarf, Orpheus and Euridice, Hansel and Gretel, L’elisir d’amore, Little Women, The Consul, If I Were You, Cendrillon, and Two Remain. She also created Little Nightingales, an opera program for children, and developed several Young Artist initiatives. Davis continues as Artistic Director of both Nightingale Opera Theatre in the U.S. and Nightingale Performing Arts Australia in Melbourne.

Dedicated to vocal health and pedagogy, Davis taught at Kent State University for ten years, where she instructed Vocal Pedagogy, Song Literature, and Diction while maintaining a large private studio. She holds a Bachelor and Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Kent State University and a Master of Arts in Vocal Pedagogy with a Singing Health Specialization Certificate from The Ohio State University. Her research interests include vocal health, voice disorders, and performance anxiety.

Currently, Davis is a PhD candidate in Performance at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, where she also serves as a member of the vocal staff.