Elizabeth Murphy of West Windsor plays a featured role in “Susannah,” an opera by Carlise Floyd based on the story of “Susanah and the Elders” set in Appalachia. Performances are at Rutgers on Friday and Sunday, February 5 and 7, in the Nicholas Music Center. “I am playing the role of Mrs. McLean, who is one of the Elders in New Hope Valley,” she says. “This has been a fun role for me — playing the ‘mean one’ — as most of my roles so far have been the love interest or comedic one.”
Murphy compares the story to “The Crucible,” where the town is on a witch hunt. Her character is “at the forefront accusing Susannah of being a loose girl — no wonder I say, she is being raised by her drunken brother Sam,” says Murphy. “The elder men of the valley see Susannah bathing naked and this confirms our suspicion that she is the devil’s child and we aim to run her out of the valley.”
A native of York County, Pennsylvania, Murphy earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple University in classical voice performance. A third year student for her DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) degree from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, she studies with Frederick Urrey.
Murphy, who has studied voice with Margaret Moul Carli and Klara Meyers, was the soprano soloist for Mozart’s Missa Brevis Mass in G in Graz, Austria. Her operatic roles include Bellini’s Norma, and the Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. At Rutgers University, she performed the role of the Plaint in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, Serafina in Donizetti’s Il Campanello di Notte, Antonia in The Tales of Hoffmann, and Nerina in Haydn’s Le Pescatrici.
A soprano, Murphy has received numerous awards and competitions, including scholarships from the Pottstown Symphony Orchestra and the Kennett Symphony Orchestra. She was the soprano soloist and section leader at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania for nine years.
An adjunct voice professor in the music department at Arcadia University in Philadelphia since the 2002, Murphy has lived in West Windsor since 2007. “I fell in love with the area when I was here for a week one summer taking a vocal pedagogy class at Westminster with Dr. Scott McCoy,” she says.
— Lynn Miller
Susannah, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Nicholas Music Center, 85 George Street, New Brunswick. Friday, February 5, 8 p.m., and Sunday, February 7, 2 p.m. Opera by Carlisle Floyd. $25. 732-932-7511. www.masongross.rutgers.edu.
