Soprano Teresa Castillo

Costa Rican-American Soprano Teresa Castillo has been hailed by the San Francisco Gate as a “standout, bringing [vocal] power and florid elegance,” and by Opera News for exhibiting “a clean, concentrated sound, and a lovely, intelligent musicianship.”

The artist’s 2025-26 season includes several returns: to Teatro Nuovo as Amina in La Sonnambula, to The Metropolitan Opera to cover the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute and Frasquita in Carmen, and to a revival run of Radamisto with Opera Essentia as Polissena. She also will join Opera Omaha for a company debutas Meridian in UnShakeable.

Castillo’s performances of Amina in Sonnambula were uniformly praised, with The New York Times reporting that Castillo “sang with grace” and her sleepwalking scene was “worth the wait,” and the Wall Street Journal declaring, “As Amina…soprano Teresa Castillo exuded sweetness, making her heartbreak when she is accused of infidelity all the more expressive; the explosive ornaments in her joyous final rondo felt well-earned.”

The 2024-2025 season saw Ms. Castillo joining the roster of The Metropolitan Opera, covering the role of Nuria in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, returning to Opera Southwest for the role of La Clementina in their production of Doña Clementina, andperforming Polissena in Radamisto with Opera Essentia. The season also marked Castillo’s mainstage debut with Houston Grand Opera, replacing an indisposed colleague on short notice in the role of Maria in Francesca Zambello’s production of West Side Story.

Engagements of note for the 2023-2024 season included a return to Lyric Opera of Chicago for a mainstage debut, singing the role of Clorinda in La Cenerentola, and a debut with the Littleton Symphony (singing “Reflections on a Mexican Garden,” which was written for her by composer Kevin Padworski).

Ms. Castillo’s 2022-2023 season included a house debut at theTeatro Lirico di Cagliari, where she performed the role of Maria in Francesca Zambello’s production of Bernstein’s West Side Story and a return to Lyric Opera of Chicago, where she covered La Comtesse Adèle in Le Comte Ory. That season, she also made house and role debuts with Chicago Opera Theater as Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring and Sara Turing in The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing, as well as a debut with Opera Southwest as La Comtesse Adèle in Le Comte Ory, where she jumped-in with 24 hrs notice. The same summer, Castillo made her Lincoln Center debut as Annetta in Ricci’s Crispino e la Comare with Teatro Nuovo.

Additional recent engagements of note for Ms. Castillo include house debuts with Lyric Opera of Chicago (Königin der Nacht cover), Opera San Jose (Frasquita in Carmen and Maria in West Side Story), and Opera Lafayette (as Lucette in the company’s production of Gretry’s Silvain). During the summer of 2022, she returned to Teatro Nuovo to sing the role of Amina in La Sonnambula, but the show was postponed due to COVID.

Ms. Castillo has placed in many competitions including the Lois Alba Aria Competition, Opera Index, The Jensen Foundation Vocal Competition, Mildred Miller International Voice Competition, The Anita Cerquetti International Competition, Altamura/Caruso International Voice Competition, Classical Singer Magazine Competition, and the Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition. She was a finalist in the George London Foundation Competition, Cooper-Bing Competition and was also a semi-finalist in the McCammon Voice Competition with Fort Worth Opera in 2020, which was cancelled due to COVID. She has received grants from Career Bridges, The Allied Arts in Denver, Colorado, The Anna Sosenko Trust, and the Bel Canto Vocal Scholarship Foundation in Cranston, Rhode Island.

Ms. Castillo’s training includes participation in San Francisco Opera‘s prestigious Merola program and as a Resident Principal Artist with Teatro Nuovo and a member of the Virginia Opera Herndon Emerging Artists program.