“The assertive Mezzo” (Wall Street Journal), Carlyle Quinn has been hailed for her “vocal prowess and acting acumen” (Cleveland Classical) and a “darkly voluminous mezzo” that is “a star sound in the making” (Parterre Box).

In the 2026/27 season, Carlyle returns to the Curtis Institute of Music for her final season as a Professional Studies Certificate student. Her season with Curtis Opera Theater includes Mrs. McLean in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah and Geneviève in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. She also joins the Curtis New Music Ensemble for Words Like Freedom: To Langston with Love and the Curtis Baroque Chamber Ensemble for a concert featuring selections from Händel’s Giulio Cesare and Rinaldo. Beyond Curtis, Carlyle makes her debut with Light Opera of New Jersey as the Mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors.

During the summer of 2026, Carlyle returned to the Savannah Voice Festival as a Festival Artist, performing as Alto Soloist in Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and appearing as Jo March and the Mother in excerpts from Mark Adamo’s Little Women and Menotti’s The Consul, respectively.

In the 2025/26 season, Carlyle made her Curtis Opera Theater debut as La messaggera in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, where Opera News praised her “fine individual timbre and trenchant declamatory theatricality.” She subsequently appeared as the Alto Soloist in Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone and returned to the role of Hermia in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Carlyle also made her Marian Anderson Hall debut with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra as a Soloist in Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Parterre Box wrote that her sound made “an immediate impression,” praising its “sizable, dark, almost contralto color” and calling her “a talent to watch.”

The 2024/25 season marked her return to Opera North as a Principal Artist, portraying Marcellina in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Aldonza/Dulcinea in Mitch Leigh’s Man of La Mancha. Her portrayal of Aldonza earned recognition from the Rutland Herald as a show-stealing performance, praised for her “magnificent mezzo” that conveyed searing intensity and deep emotion. Additionally, Carlyle debuted at the Savannah Voice Festival as a Study Grant Artist, premiering the role of Angelina in Michael Ching’s Cinderella’s Royal Feast, a sequel to Rossini’s La Cenerentola.

In the 2023/24 season, she was a Resident Artist with Opera North, where she portrayed an “irresistible” Maddalena (Rutland Herald) in Verdi’s Rigoletto. She also performed as Vénus in Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers and Lucinda in Sondheim’s Into the Woods, additionally voicing the Giant and covering the Witch. Carlyle was also a Resident Artist with Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, performing as Cissy in Robert Nelson’s Tickets, Please!

Her 2022/23 season featured a “brilliantly characterized” (Cleveland Classical) Madame de la Haltière in Massenet’s Cendrillon with the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater. She also sang Madame de Croissy in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, delivering a “riveting death scene” praised as “outstanding” (Cleveland Classical). Other highlights included Florence Pike in Britten’s Albert Herring with Harrower Summer Opera, her Alto Soloist debut in Mozart’s Requiem with the Lima Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Crust, and a solo recital with pianist Matias Cuevas at the Church of the Western Reserve Concert Series. Carlyle earned the 2023 Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition Michigan District and was a semifinalist in the Dallas Opera Guild’s Lone Star Vocal Competition and the Federation of Art Song Fellowship Competition.

In 2021/22, Carlyle performed selections from Bizet’s Carmen as the title role with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra during a vocal department centennial gala. She portrayed Meg Page in an abridged Verdi Falstaff for CIMOT’s Shakespeare, Operatically festival. As a guest artist with Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts Opera Theater, she performed the dialogue role of Puck in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Carlyle also sang Ježibaba in Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Utah Vocal Arts Academy and participated in the Cleveland Art Song Festival with collaborator Lu Niu, working with Warren Jones, David Portillo, Craig Terry, and Tamara Wilson. She was a 2022 Encouragement Award winner in the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition Utah District.

During the 2020/21 season, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Carlyle showcased her versatility through virtual performances including Oberon, Hermia, and Cobweb in a filmed production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Juilliard Opera Theater; covering Arcane in a virtual adaptation of Händel’s Teseo; a recorded Liederabend coached by Pierre Vallet; and a virtual solo recital with pianist Adam Nielsen. She also participated in the Houston Grand Opera Young Artist Vocal Academy.

In 2019/20, she collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s MetLive Arts Series, the New York Philharmonic, and Juilliard Opera Theater for Thomson’s The Mother of Us All, portraying Indiana Elliot. She performed a modified Madame de Croissy in the devised production There’s Blood Between Us and sang Mezzo II in Debussy’s Nocturnes with the New York Philharmonic under Louis Langrée.

In 2018/19, Carlyle participated in Juilliard Opera Theater’s collaboration with Juilliard415 for Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, covering the title role. The production toured to the Joye in Aiken Festival, Opera Holland Park, and L’Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles.

Carlyle currently studies with soprano Jennifer Rowley at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she is completing her Professional Studies Certificate and holds the Lelia A. Wike Fellowship. She earned her Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2023, studying with Dr. Mary Schiller and graduating with the Boris Goldovsky Prize in Opera, which honors outstanding operatic performance. She was also the inaugural recipient of the Emma Lincoln Scholarship. Carlyle completed her Bachelor of Music at The Juilliard School in 2021 under the tutelage of Edith Wiens, having been accepted to the school at age sixteen. In 2017, she attended the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie as an apprentice artist, performing in an Operngala with the Nürnberger Symphoniker, a Liederabend at Historischer Reitstadel Neumarkt, and a cabaret concert with pianist Craig Terry. From 2014 to 2017, Carlyle was a member of the Juilliard Pre-College program, studying with Lorraine Nubar and receiving a merit scholarship from the George London Foundation. During this time, she performed her first Alto Solo in Haydn’s Mass in Time of War with the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra.

Carlyle grew up in the Pacific Northwest, discovering her love for opera at age eight. She made her operatic role debut in 2013 as the Shepherd Boy in Portland Opera’s Tosca. She won MetroArts’ Young Artists Debut Concerto Competition twice, in 2014 and 2016, performing works by Gluck and Gounod with orchestras composed of Oregon Symphony and Portland Opera musicians. In 2015, she appeared as the Faerie No. 2 soloist in Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Oregon Ballet Theatre.