about

With a remarkable range and emotional depth, soprano Olivia Prendergast has been praised for her “poised” and “silvery-voiced” tone (Opera Today).

         In 2025-2026, Ms. Prendergast is set to make her debut with Opera Philadelphia singing Delia in Il viaggio a Reims, starting off their 50th anniversary season with a bang. Equally expressive in concert-work, she will return to Indiana to sing with the Indianapolis Symphony as the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah. Ms. Prendergast will also rejoin four-time Grammy-winning ensemble, the Crossing, for their premieres of Tic-Talk (Nina Shekhar) and Of being numerous (Christopher Cerrone). In winter 2026, she will reprise her role in the acclaimed concert-length piece, poor hymnal (David Lang) with the Crossing, which she premiered, toured and recorded with the ensemble in 2023. In 2024-2025, she performed as Nina in Christopher Helsop’s fun-loving jazz opera, The Bear Prince, with Berks Opera Company. Ms. Prendergast sang as a guest soloist in Carmina Burana with the DeSales University Choir and Orchestra, and as an ethereal soprano soloist in Cinema Concert Experience with Symphony 21, an assembled professional ensemble committed to propelling traditional art forms into the 21st century by exposing youth to modern, cross-disciplinary approaches to music, technology and visual arts. Earlier in the season, she joined The Crossing and the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a soloist for Gabriela Ortiz’ Revolución diamantina, among many other premieres as a soprano soloist including You Are Who I Love (Harold Meltzer) and The Last Words of Immanuel Kant(Gavin Bryars).

         In the 2023-2024 season, Ms. Prendergast joined Opera Theatre of St. Louis as a Gerdine Young Artist, where she covered Cleopatra in Julius Caesar and went on for Marie de’Medici in Galileo Galilei. After her stint in St. Louis, she jumped into The Glimmerglass Festival mid-season to cover the title role in La Calisto. She also made her debut singing Pamina in Livermore Valley Opera’s outreach production of The Magic Flute and sang as the soprano soloist with the Mercersburg Symphony Orchestra for their spring concert. During her two seasons with the Merola Opera Program in 2022 and 2023, she respectively performed as “the ideal naïf” (San Francisco Classical Voice) - Lucia - in The Rape of Lucretia, and as First Spirit and Papagena (cover) in Die Zauberflöte.

         Particularly passionate about modern works, Ms. Prendergast premiered the role of Joan of Arc in Graciela Carríqui’s chamber work In Her Own Words: Joan of Arc Speaks (composer’s initiative). She also sang as the soprano soloist in Jaeger’s Letters Made with Gold and Reich’s Tehillim during her time at Northwestern University. Hailed as “a voice that can do anything” (Betsy Burleigh), she sang as Margarita Xirgu in Ainadamar during her time at Indiana University, and as Lisa in Dog Days (Little/Vavrek) with originating conductor Alan Pierson at Northwestern University. Ms. Prendergast has also appeared as a soloist with the East Passyunk Opera Project, the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project, and Concentus, Indiana University Historical Performance Institute’s early music ensemble with early music expert, conductor Dana Marsh. With Concentus, she performed as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore, Telemann’s Die Dönner-Ode, and Schütz’ Weihnachts-Historie.

         On the competition circuit, Ms. Prendergast won second place in the Midwest Region of the Laffont Competition in 2023, after winning the St. Louis and Tennessee Districts in 2023 and 2022. She was a semifinalist in the Annapolis Vocal Competition in 2025 and received the Director’s Award from the James Toland Vocal Competition.