Michèle Crider (born 1959, Quincy, IL) is an American lirico spinto operatic soprano. She has appeared in many of the great opera house in the world including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and the state operas of Vienna, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg. She has sung alongside the great conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, James Levine, Nello Santi, Christoph von Dohnányi, Semyon Bychkov, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Chailly and Colin Davis. She is professor of vocal performance at the Mozarteum University Salzburg. Education Michele Crider is a graduate of Quincy Senior High School in Quincy, IL. She studied voice at Culver-Stockton College and then at the University of Iowa, where she performed her first opera role in Madama Butterfly and came to the attention of University of Iowa alumnus Simon Estes. She won the District Metropolitan Opera Auditions twice. Afterwards she left Iowa and went to Zurich where she continued her studies at the studio of the Zurich Opera House. In 1988 she was the finalist of the Luciano Pavarotti competition. In 1989 she won one of the three first prizes at the Geneva International Music Competition. This prize directly led to her engagement as Leonora in Il trovatore in Dortmund and to her participation in the International Grand Prix, which she then won. Crider has recorded Amelia in Un ballo in maschera for Teldec under Carlo Rizzi, Elena and Margherita in Mefistofele under the baton of Riccardo Muti for BMG Classics, Verdi's Requiem under Richard Hickox with the London Symphony Orchestra for Chandos Records and the role of Gerhilde in Die Walküre on Decca under Christoph von Dohnanyi. Soprano Crider is one of today's preeminent dramatic sopranos of her generation. In most recent seasons, she returned to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, to the Vienna State Opera as Tosca, to Budapest and Mannheim as Leonora in La forza del destino, to the Aalto Theatre in Essen in the title role of Norma, made her Lisbon debut with Verdi's Messa da Requiem, was Tosca at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, and the Prague State Opera, was in Tel Aviv as Leonora in Il trovatore and as La giocconda, in Essen and Lecce as Aida, in Hamburg as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, and