Hailed by The New York Times as “radiant,” Naomi Louisa O’Connell made her professional debut in 2012 starring on the West End in Terrence McNally’s play Master Class. Her work encompasses a broad spectrum of theatrical and operatic repertoire, ranging from plays to operas, from recitals and cabarets to sound sculptures and virtual reality performance art.

Sought after for her interpretations of contemporary opera, she created the role of Mrs Van Buren in Intimate Apparel (Gordon/Nottage) at Lincoln Center Theater, to be released on PBS Great Performances this fall. Notable operatic roles include the title role in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (Oper Frankfurt), Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Welsh National Opera, Atlanta Opera), Offenbach’s La Périchole (Garsington Opera), and Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande — both Maeterlinck’s play and Debussy’s opera — with the Cincinnati Symphony. At Princeton’s McCarter Theatre, she performed the role of Rosine in Stephen Wadsworth’s translations of the Beaumarchais Figaro plays.

World premieres of contemporary operas include Figaro Gets A Divorce (Langer/Pountney), The Flood (Fujiwara/Wadsworth), The Wait (O’Halloran), TOUCH (Power/Ione), and The Selfish Giant (Assad/Palmer). Her bravura performance in Least Like the Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy (Irvine/Jones) with Irish National Opera was hailed as “a tour de force” (Sunday Independent) and “a cut above the extraordinary.” (Arts Review) Most recently, she recorded Ireland’s first virtual reality opera As an nGnách (Merivale/O’Neill) which will tour the country’s music festivals in 2023.

Lauded by The New York Times as “a natural in the recital format” for her Carnegie Hall debut recital Witches, Bitches & Women in Britches at Weill Recital Hall, she performs regularly in concerts internationally, and her recitals have been featured on WQXR and the Met Live Arts Series. A keen performer of chamber music, her nuanced performance of Ravel’s Mallarmé songs at the Marlboro Music Festival was applauded by the Boston Globe as “outstanding.”

A graduate of The Juilliard School and the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Naomi was brought up in the west of Ireland. Works in development include a theatrical song cycle (for which she is also the librettist) with composer Emma O’Halloran under the auspices of Ireland’s Music Network. Upcoming performances include engagements with LA Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, New York’s Prototype Festival, Hong Kong’s ‘Intimate of Creativity’ Festival, and the Dublin Theatre Festival.