Dixie Diva Dishes! Mezzo Victoria Livngood Shares Her iPod with BWW

January 14, 2014 - BWW Classical

Critics have called her "the ideal Carmen of our time" and "one of the leading singer-actresses of her generation." The New York Times called her "naturally seductive and vocally alluring." But this down-to-earth southern girl prefers the moniker: The Dixie Diva!

Although the Dixie Diva is known principally for her Carmen (a role she's performed over 200 times worldwide) she is also one of the most sought-after singers of modern music. This season sees her in Benjamin Britten's rarely performed Noah's Flood, with the New Orlean Opera, as well as the American premiere of The Passenger, a powerful Holocaust opera by exiled Polish-Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, at Houston Grand Opera. She returns to the Met for Arabella later in the season, followed by Streetcar Named Desire at LA Opera. In between, she'll be doing Rigoletto in New Orleans and Salome in Utah.

With a schedule like that it's a wonder she had any time at all to sit down with BWW and share what she's been listening to lately!

"Shall we say that I obviously love Classical Music and Opera, but not for relaxing at home. Then my choice is usually country music (because I can understand the words and the story of the songs) and then pop music, as well as a cappella music and bit of new age and jazz mixed in.

Carrie Underwood's Blown Away album is a current favorite of mine.

Sigur Ros is a wonderful band from Iceland. Their album Takk. I discovered them through my nephew since his unborn baby calmed down when we played their music!

Home Free the Minnesota-based, all-male country group from the TV show The Sing Off (I grew up loving a cappella music big time).

One Republic's Native album, they recently did a tour with Sara Bareilles, whose new album The Blessed Unrest is also on my list!

I love the Zac Brown Band, a country/folk/southern rock/jam-band from Atlanta.

And of course, anything that Barbra Streisand sings! How's that for wildly eclectic tastes!

BroadwayWorldClassical thanks Victoria Livengood for sharing her IPOD with us. We wish her well in her amazingly eclectic performance schedule this season and we can't wait to see her in Arabella at the Met this spring!