Mary Dibbern

The American pianist Mary Dibbern has resided in France since 1978. She is appreciated as an accompanist and vocal coach for operatic productions, recordings, recitals and competitions.

Dibbern has music diplomas from the University of North Dakota (Grand Forks) and Southern Methodist University (Dallas) where she graduated summa cum laude with a Master of Music in accompaniment under the direction of Maestro Paul Vellucci. She studied vocal recital repertoire in Paris and Vienna with Nadia Boulanger, Dalton Baldwin, Gérard Souzay, Pierre Bernac, Erik Werba, Jorg Demus and Hans Hotter. In Vienna, she received the Franz Schubert Prize for Lieder Accompaniment. In 1987 she received a grant from the Fondation Internationale Nadia and Lili Boulanger that allowed her to undertake an extensive study of French opera with Janine Reiss, who later chose her as assistant for productions at the Théâtre Musicale de Paris-Châtelet, at the CNIPAL (Marseille) and in Toulouse.

Mary Dibbern works internationally as a free-lance vocal coach and accompanist. She is a frequent guest at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Centre de Formation Lyrique of the Opéra National de Paris as well as on the main stage of the Opéra National de Paris and at the operas of Nice, Bordeaux, Lyons, TMP-Châtelet, the Opéra-Comique, the Opera of Toulouse, the Festival de Radio France & de Montpellier Languedoc-Rousillon, the Théâtre Municipal de Lausanne (Switzerland), the Círculo Portuense de Opera (Oporto), the Hawai’i Opera Theatre and the Shanghai Opera House (PRC). She was in charge of musical and language preparation for the first French-language productions in China of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Bizet’s Carmen.

She has worked on the musical preparation of French, Italian and German operas and recordings in close collaboration with the world’s finest conductors. She has accompanied vocal recitals in the USA, Europe and Japan—notably at La Scala, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Opéra-Comique, Radio France and the Opéra Royal de Versailles. Her recital recordings include Mélodies de Jacques Leguerney released by Claves (Switzerland), a CD produced to honor the composer’s 90th birthday celebration in Paris and which won the Grand Prix du Disque; Offenbach au Menu on the Maguelone label and Mélodies de Jacques Leguerney, Vols. I and II (LPs) for Harmonia Mundi France. After the success of her world premier recordings of Leguerney’s songs, she was chosen to edit eight volumes of the composer’s previously unpublished mélodies for Editions Max Eschig (Paris).

She has been guest master class teacher for both singers and accompanists at the Hawaii Opera Theater, the University of Minnesota–Minneapolis, North Dakota State University Fargo, the University of Nevada Las Vegas (Artist in Residence), the University of Texas Austin, Coe College, Oregon State University Corvallis. She was also guest teacher and performing artist for the National Association of Teachers of Singing 1999 Summer Workshop: French Art Song in Study and Performance at Rutgers University as well as the following NATS chapters: Iowa Chapter, Las Vegas Chapter, San Diego Chapter,  Cascade Chapter (Oregon), Puget Sound Chapter (Seattle), Georgia Chapter in collaboration with the Georgia Music Teachers Association, and the Dallas Ft. Worth Chapter.

She is the author of Tales of Hoffmann: Performance Guide and Carmen: Performance Guide for Pendragon Press, she has also written Interpreting the Songs of Jacques Leguerney: A Guide for Study and Performance in collaboration with Carol Kimball and Patrick Choukroun also published by Pendragon.