Manna K. Jones, American Soprano, is known for her dramatic brilliance across opera and classical music as well as musical theater. She has appeared in the title roles of Madama Butterfly at Carnegie Hall, internationally as Fiordiligi in Cosí fan tutte and made her Broadway debut in Rocktopia, a Classical Revolution. Manna is featured in the Naxos documentary film, Global Wagner – From Bayreuth to the World for her work as Brünhilde in Götterdämmerung.
Her many career highlights include riveting title-role portrayals of Cio-cio San in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Carnegie Hall and Suor Angelica with the California Opera Association. Additionally, Pamina in The Magic Flute with the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Micaëla in Carmen at Lincoln Center. Although she enjoys performing well-known soprano roles like these, her most rewarding work is found in renderings of prominent black women such as Margaret Washington, wife of Booker T. Washington, Nancy Turner, mother of slave rebellion leader, Nat Turner, and Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine by Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Tania León. Filmed for Opera America-affiliated companies she also starred as the doubly enslaved African princess, Imoinda, in a new opera by UK resident and Cuban-American composer, Odaline de la Martinez. This, just after playing Essie Robeson in the world premier of Adolphus Hailstork’s biopic Robeson: The Opera with at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
Manna’s distinguished honors include awards and recognitions from: Talents of the World, Inc., Riccardo Zandonai International Competition, Paris Opera Awards, Benjamin Mathews, Opera Birmingham, Art Song Preservation Society, and the International Thespian Festival. She is also winner of an American Prize for Opera, the Elaine Malbin Vocal Competition in New York, the Lily Pons Scholarship from the Palm Springs Opera Guild, the Alabama National Society of Arts and Letters Vocal Competition, three-time winner in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Vocal Competition, and Mid-South District Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. When Manna sang for Marilyn Horne, the legendary mezzo-soprano pronounced her voice, “An incredible instrument."
