She gained international fame by winning the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition in her early twenties. Since then, she has performed leading roles in major opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and La Scala in Milan. She has collaborated with renowned tenors such as Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and Jose Carreras in both opera and concert performances.

Kallen was named after her Armenian grandfather, Kalouste, who fled Armenia during a Turkish invasion.

Her mother, Mary Anna, one of ten children, grew up during the Great Depression in a suburb of Tremont, Mississippi, called Goose Holler, with no running water, no electricity. “Momma was one of the strongest people I’ve ever known,” Kallen recalls. “Wise. She told me stories every night — not read them, but told them — and she’d recite Edgar Allan Poe, her favorite poet.”

She encountered challenges early in life, including the loss of her birth father when she was just eleven months old. Raised in Illinois, Kallen started ballet lessons at the age of three and piano lessons at ten. “I started entertaining the neighborhood kids when I was three, and I never wondered what I wanted to do — I knew! I wanted to perform.”

Although she always had a passion for singing and participated in school choruses, she didn’t begin voice lessons until she was sixteen. While attending Barrington High School, her choral director encouraged her to pursue vocal studies in college. Later, she won her high school’s “1990 Distinguished Graduate Award.”

Kallen received a full scholarship to study opera at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 1981, during her freshman year, she performed her first opera, The Magic Flute. While still attending the University of Illinois, she was cast in a touring production of The Beggar’s Opera by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. In 1984, she won the Mid-South region’s Metropolitan Opera Competition, and in 1985, she won the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition.

Following her win, she was cast as Mimi opposite Pavarotti’s Rodolfo in the Philadelphia Opera’s production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme. “What made his competitions so great was the prize: a leading role opposite him,” Esperian said. “So my first full soprano role in Italian was Mimi in La Boheme opposite Luciano Pavarotti. His voice is in my head all the time. I think, ‘What would Luciano tell me?’ His markings are in most of my opera scores. The memory I have of him is as a human being. The one thing he really was, was honest.”

The production toured, traveling to Modena and Genoa in Italy, and to Beijing, China, as part of an Italian and Chinese cultural exchange. The documentary Distant Harmony, directed by Dewitt Sage, was filmed to record this historic trip.

Esperian made her La Scala debut in 1987, in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi’s Luisa Miller. Later that same year, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Mimi, in Puccini’s La Boheme, opposite tenor Plácido Domingo as Rodolfo. Over four hundred people traveled from Memphis to see the performance.

In 1995, she made her London debut in a televised Pavarotti Plus concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The concert was so outstanding that Princess Diana of Wales, who was in the audience that night, invited Esperian to perform at Caernarfon Castle in Cardiff, Wales. After that, she had a whirlwind schedule, performing in Amsterdam, Bologna, Barcelona, the Dresden Opera in Germany, the Deutsche Opera in Berlin, and the Bastille Opera House in Paris, where she played Desdemona opposite Domingo in Verdi’s Otello.

Esperian has sung leading roles in every major opera house in the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper, Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, Opera National de Paris, Barcelona’s Gran Teatro de Liceu, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Arena di Verona, Orange Festival France, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Los Angeles Opera and the Washington National Opera.

Esperian’s concerts have been recorded and televised worldwide. She has performed for President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, French President Francois Mitterrand, and, along with Luciano Pavarotti, for Queen Elizabeth II.

Kallen Esperian was one of The Three Sopranos, produced by Tibor Rudas Theatrical Productions, and she is the only one of The Three Sopranos to have performed individually with each of The Three Tenors: Italian Luciano Pavarotti and Spaniards Plácido Domingo and José Carreras. Plácido Domingo said, “Kallen possesses one of the most beautiful and expressive soprano voices. She’s a fine musician, a highly professional colleague and I have always enjoyed my engagements with her. She’s also a lovely person with a good sense of humor.”

She has recorded for both Atlantic and Decca Records, and has also produced several recordings on her own label, Goose Hollow Productions. Besides her operatic achievements, Esperian has explored other musical genres. In 2007, she recorded a CD featuring rock and jazz classics, including a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”

Kallen Esperian has been residing in Memphis, Tennessee, since 1982, holding onto her deep Southern roots inherited from her mother’s Mississippi heritage. Her philanthropic efforts are centered around supporting children’s causes, as she has organized benefit concerts for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, among others.

In 2011, Esperian assumed the role of Artist in Residence at the University of Mississippi. Her responsibilities included conducting master classes, teaching voice and music students, making appearances on and off campus, and collaborating with the University of Mississippi Opera Theatre. Esperian was honored with a doctorate degree by Rhodes College in Memphis and has also received various accolades such as the Dorothy B. Chandler Award, the Mafalda Favero Award, the Arts and Humanities Award from the Germantown Arts Alliance, the Amphion Award from the Memphis Symphony, 2010 Emissary of Memphis Music, and the Distinguished Achievement Award from the University of Memphis. In 2017, she was awarded the Governor’s Arts Award by then Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam.

Kallen Esperian’s career is characterized by her adaptability and unwavering dedication to her art. She continues to captivate audiences with her commanding performances and remains a cherished figure in the world of opera and music.

Watch Kallen Esperian’s Induction