ABOUT

NYC-based contralto Emily Geller has been praised for her “lower extension that has to be heard to be believed” (Seen and Heard International) and for being “hilariously over the top” (Opera Magazine).

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​In 2026, she made her Opera Modesto debut, reprising Ježibaba in Rusalka, and returns to Salt Marsh Opera this fall in the same role. This spring, she joined Beth Morrison Projects in Monna Innominata (Steinke) at National Sawdust as part of NEXTGEN. She made another company debut this summer with Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre, performing Counsel for the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury and returning to the role of Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, her seventeenth Gilbert and Sullivan production to date. Her portrayal of Ruth was praised as "comic gold" and for its "clear and beautiful" vocals. This fall, she stars as Miss Todd in The Old Maid and the Thief with Amelia Island Opera, marking her fourth company debut of the 2026 season. Upcoming 2027 engagements include a return to Pacific Opera Project as Suzy in La rondine and a Gulfshore Opera as Zita in Gianni Schicchi.

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Her 2024-2025 season performances included the Marquise of Berkenfield in La fille du régiment with Opera Santa Barbara and Opera Company of Middlebury, Second Lady in a projection-based production of The Magic Flute with Tri-Cities Opera, Ježibaba in Rusalka with Gulfshore Opera, the Page of Herodias in Salome with Union Avenue Opera, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance with Salt Marsh Opera, and a return to Pacific Opera Project as Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus and Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore in a co-production with Opera Las Vegas.

 

Additional recent engagements include Mrs. Quickly in Falstaff and Zita in Gianni Schicchi with Salt Marsh Opera, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance with Pacific Opera Project, Benoît/Alcindoro in La bohème with Newport Classical, and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly with Teatro Lirico d’Europa (U.S. Tour).

 

Equally at home with new music, Emily joined Beth Morrison Projects for the first time in Monna Innominata (Steinke) at National Sawdust with the Katarina String Quartet, under the musical direction of Kazem Abdullah. She previously created the role of Sylvia, an image-obsessed Hollywood mother, in the world premiere of Chunky in Heat with Experiments in Opera and Contemporaneous as part of New York Opera Festival, directed by Alison Moritz and conducted by David Bloom. Her performance garnered critical acclaim, with reviewers praising her “amazing mezzo-soprano voice with a lower extension that has to be heard to be believed,” her “impressively forceful” lower range that “penetrat[ed] easily over a fortissimo orchestra,” and calling her “a thrilling contralto, tripping off high and low notes.” Opera News highlighted the “layers of complexity” she brought to her character. Additional contemporary credits include Elder Constance in Matthew Aucoin’s chamber opera Second Nature with Opera Fayetteville, Scholar in John Austin’s Heloise and Abelard with Center for Contemporary Opera, and Wife in Richard Wargo’s The Music Shop with Opera on the James.

        

Recent concert engagements include Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody with the Mendelssohn Glee Club of New York City and Cappella Cantorum; Honegger’s King David and Bach’s Schwingt freudig euch empor with the Westchester Oratorio Society; Vivaldi’s Gloria and Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël with the Putnam Chorale; Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and Duruflé’s Requiem with The Taghkanic Chorale; Elgar’s The Music Makers with Cappella Cantorum; Mozart’s Requiem at Hopkins Center for the Arts with the Dartmouth Glee Club and Taconic Opera; Handel’s Messiah at the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove, NJ with MidAtlantic Symphony Orchestra, Pentangle’s Classical Music Series, and Taconic Opera; and Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium at the Anderson Center for the Arts in Binghamton, NY.

As a two-year Resident Artist with Tri-Cities Opera, she performed Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), Mercédès (Carmen), Lola (Cavalleria rusticana) and Ines (Il trovatore). After covering Marthe (Faust) at St. Petersburg Opera, she was invited back as a Principal Artist, appearing as Alma Hix and covering Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (The Music Man). As an audience favorite, Emily returned to Opera North several times, performing Ma Moss (The Tender Land), Hattie (Kiss Me, Kate), Oreste (La belle Hélène), and Mrs. Jones (Street Scene), where she was described as “dangerously close to stealing the show with her effortless comic delivery.”

 

Emily earned her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory under the Ruth S. Morse Scholarship and her Master of Music in Opera from Binghamton University with a full assistantship.