To celebrate and spotlight some of the field’s top emerging singers, OPERA America recently asked company leaders to nominate the singers and production artists who have caught their ears and eyes.

Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Doche sang her first solo in kindergarten.

“Neither of my parents is musical, and it was my kindergarten teacher who reached out to my mom and said, ‘Stephanie has a beautiful singing voice,’” she recalls. “Singing helped me with my confidence in school and has formed so much of my identity.”

In the years since, she earned degrees in music from the State University of New York at Fredonia and the University of Texas at Austin and has sung with some of the leading companies in the U.S., including debuts with Washington Concert Opera, San Diego Opera, Opera Memphis, Teatro Nuovo, and many others.

“In the past few seasons, Stephanie Doche has emerged as one of the most exciting young mezzo-sopranos on the American scene,” says Adam Cioffari, artistic administrator at San Diego Opera. “She continues to go from strength to strength, combining a well-schooled technique with a highly individual artistic identity to craft memorable characters.”

Born in France and raised in Rochester, Doche first encountered opera as a freshman at SUNY, when she helped with quick costuming changes during a production of The Tales of Hoffmann. “I fell in love immediately with the grandness of opera, with the style of storytelling and the complexity and nuance of the music,” she says. Today, she often sings Rossini, and this season will return to San Diego Opera as Rosina in The Barber of Seville, as well as sing her first Verdi Requiem with the Billings Symphony in Montana.

“Stephanie gave two outstanding performances as Angelina in Fort Worth Opera’s recent production of La Cenerentola,” says Jennifer Chung Quintard, FWO’s former director of artistic administration and now Virginia Opera’s community engagement and education manager. “A beautiful singer, in full control of her voice, which is lined up top to bottom. Stephanie is a star in the making.”

In the Wings is underwritten by generous support from Laurie E. Nelson Randlett, trustee of the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.