Biography & Resume

Mezzo-soprano Cabiria Jacobsen was recently praised for her “mezzo of richness and power” by Opera Magazine (UK). Currently an Emerging Artist at Virginia Opera, Cabiria was one of ten finalists in the 2012 Liederkranz Competition in New York. In 2011, she won the Ilene D. Kaplan award from the Connecticut Opera Guild, and was also an Encouragement Grant winner in the Schuyler Foundation for Career Bridges competition. That same year, Cabiria sang the role of Cherubino/Le nozze di Figaro at Opera North directed by Michael Shell, where the Classical Voice of New England called her performance "exquisite," and "intoxicatingly understated, yet believably endearing." Opera News described her January 2012 performance of Angelica in Vaughan Williams' The Poisoned Kiss as "by turns saucy, exasperated, and man-hungry, exhibiting a wonderfully limber physicality."

At Virginia Opera this season, Cabiria will sing the roles of the Mother and the Witch in their touring production of Hansel and Gretel. She will also cover the Mexican Flower Seller in Streetcar Named Desire. Formerly a Resident Artist at Tri-Cities Opera, she performed several roles there, including Dorabella/Così fan tutte, Suzuki/Madama Butterfly and Nicklausse/Les contes d'Hoffman on the mainstage, as well as Hansel/Hansel and Gretel; La Ciesca/Gianni Schicchi; and Mom and Grandma/Little Red Riding Hood in their chamber opera and outreach series. In the summer of 2010, Cabiria covered the role of Siebel/Faust at Opera New Jersey. She has appeared in opera and concert at the Greenwood Music Festival and the Grand Canyon Chamber Music Festival, and in recital in Boston and New York.

A proud native of Brooklyn, NY, Cabiria began singing at a young age with the New York City Opera Children’s Chorus, and attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute the summer before her senior year at the Bronx High School of Science. At Northwestern University, Cabiria continued to pursue both opera and theater, graduating in 2006 with bachelor's degrees in Voice as well as Drama. She subsequently moved to Boston, where she performed with the Lowell House Opera and OperaHub, a company she co-founded in 2007. Cabiria joined the joint MM/Resident Artist program at Binghamton University and Tri-Cities Opera in 2009, with a full scholarship and teaching assistantship. She graduated in June 2011 with an MM in Opera, and returned to TCO as a Resident Artist for their 2011 - 2012 season. She is married to tenor Kirk Dougherty.