“Is there anything Whisnant can’t do? Certainly she demonstrated that Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, and his contemporaries are within her grasp. In a few years, I wouldn’t be surprised to read that she had been cast in the title role of Bellini’s NORMA.”

Indeed, this prophecy has since been realized, as Whisnant’s "Norma" has enjoyed triumphant critical and popular success in both the United States and South America.

Currently Ms. Whisnant is an ensemble member with Nationaltheater Mannheim and a frequent guest performer with both Oper Frankfurt and Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. Ms. Whisnant has won acclaim with critics and audiences alike for her sensitive and technically assured performances of a wide range of roles, including Brünnhilde (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Elektra (Elektra), Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos), Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), Leonora (Il Trovatore), Madame Lidoine (Les Dialogues des Carmélites), and Maddalena de Coigny (Andrea Chénier). She has performed with many North American and South American opera companies and festivals in venues such as Teatro Colon de Bogotá, Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Des Moines Metro Opera, Kentucky Opera, Pensacola Opera, Opera Memphis, Central City Opera, and Arizona Opera.

Equally at home on the concert stage, she has performed a role-debut as Sieglinde in Act I of Die Walküre with the Richmond Symphony; the role of Cleopatra in selections from Samuel Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra (featuring Cleopatra’s two arias) with the Spokane Symphony; OPERA GALAs with Opera Birmingham (all-Verdi program) and with North Carolina’s Piedmont Opera Theatre; Mahler’s Second Symphony as well as solo recitals featuring Mahler, Marx, and Korngold for Colorado’s critically-acclaimed MahlerFest; Mozart’s Mass in C-Minor for her Carnegie Hall debut with MidAmerica Productions; the American premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater; as well as Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Rossini’s Stabat Mater in a variety of performance venues throughout the United States.

She received her Bachelor of Music at Converse College, her Masters of Music in Voice Performance at Florida State University, and her Certificate of Merit at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts.

Elektra & Brünnhilde photographs by Jacqueline Krause-Burberg. © 2006.