and the Opéra National de Paris. Other companies she has sung with in the United States include Arizona Opera, Opera Boston, Pittsburgh Opera, and Tulsa Opera among others. In the 2010s, Blythe started performing male roles under the drag persona "Blythely Oratonio", "a dramatic tenor with a naughty sense of humor and a storied operatic career who secretly always wanted to be a rock singer", as which she appears with a fake beard. Her male range is that of a tenor, overlapping with the lower end of a her mezzo-soprano voice. She has performed pieces from various genres including opera, rock, and musical theatre. In September 2021, she debuted as Don José in Carmen at the Chicago Opera Theater, with Jamie Barton in the title role. In a San Diego Opera production in 2023, she performed as a baritone for the first time, singing the title role of Gianni in Puccini's one-act comic opera Gianni Schicchi. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, this was the first time any woman opera singer in the world has sung a baritone role in a professional production. Educator Blythe has educated young singers across the country in master classes, some of which include appearances at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the USC Thornton School of Music, among many others. Blythe is on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center's Vocal Arts Program, at the summer home of the Boston Symphony, and the week-long vocal program known as the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar (which she founded in 2012 at her alma mater, SUNY Potsdam, Potsdam, New York). In 2018, Blythe was appointed to be the artistic director of the Bard College Conservatory of Music Graduate Vocal Arts Program, succeeding Dawn Upshaw, VAP founder. Honors and awards She received the prestigious Richard Tucker Music Foundation Award in 1999. SUNY Potsdam awarded her the degree of Doctor of Music honoris causa in 2006. In 2007, Blythe was an Opera News Award honoree, the youngest artist ever to receive this award. References External links Official Website Vocalist of the Year 1970 births Living people People from Monticello, New York People from Thompson, New York People from Sullivan County, New York American operatic mezzo-sopranos Female-to-male cross-dressers People from the Catskills Richard Tucker Award winners Crane School of Music alumni Singers from New York (state) Winners of the Metropolitan