Originally from Los Angeles, dramatic soprano Kelly Morel has now made her home in Kansas City, Missouri, where she completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree at the University of Missouri, Kansas City in 2017 and was the Mezzo-Soprano Resident Artist with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City from 2018-2019.

 

Her roles with Lyric Opera of KC include Kate Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Alisa in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, the Mother in Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Mrs. Massey in Paul Moravec's The Shining, which in 2025 was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Opera Recording.

 

In 2023 she debuted the role of Leonore (Beethoven's Fidelio - Opera Company of Middlebury) which launched her transition to dramatic soprano. Since then she has taken every opportunity to perform this repertoire, which was greatly facilitated when she became the Resident Soprano for Kansas City-based Dramatic Voices Midwest, led by Artistic Director Joanna Ehlers.

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For the 2024 and 2025 seasons with DVM, Ms. Morel debuted two Wagner heroines: Isolde in Tristan und Isolde and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre. 

 

For 2026, she is looking forward to debuting a third role:

Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore.