Photograph by Flavia Loreto
gina perregrino is an american opera singer, teaching artist, and writer.
Due to her notable work in opera, she has collaborated alongside authors such as Salmon Rushdie and Khaled Hosseini. Behind the screen, Gina has also been featured in the film Baawal (2023), directed by award winning director Nitesh Tiwari. The most recent opera/film-hybrid collaboration was with Afghan film director Roya Sadat and Roya Film House during the world premiere of the opera 1000 Splendid Suns with Seattle Opera. She has performed with the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Seattle Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Minnesota Opera, Opera Philadelphia, The Dallas Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Ópera de Guatemala, The Atlanta Opera, OperaDelaware, and Central City Opera.
She is a regular performer with the Athena Music Foundation in New York City, where she is often called to sing programs centering around Bizet's Carmen.
Though primarily trained in opera, Gina's temperament is with the folk music of Mexico and Latin America. She is an avid performer of rancheras and mariachi, which she often performs with guitar in her musical duo Rocío. Her interpretation of Latin songs has also been featured in operatic crossover programs at companies like Santa Fe Opera.
Her work has been critically interpreted as "potent," possessing "swaggering strength" and "urgency" (Opera News), as she wraps her artistry in the deep roots of her own sensuality. As a performer, whether she is on the stage, behind the screen, or she is speaking, her goal is to actively embody feminine freedom and give women the permission to be unapologetically themselves.
Gina's success has never been a road without hurdles (and occasional potholes). After living in Europe, Gina returned from Berlin and turned the mirror on herself. She decided to write about and focus on what had most intensely colored her personal journey: the emotional, financial, and geographical realities of being a full-time opera singer.
She is passionate about transparency, about educating, and about bringing compassion to the music business. Along with being a teaching artist, Gina has been collaborating with a woman-led marketing team to bring her content and voice to the forefront of conversation. Read an article from the beginnings of her musings here, published in an Atlanta lifestyle magazine during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her collaboration and featured article with Huffington Post can be read here.
Gina is also the founder of FORTE, an innovative musical mentorship program for those interested in pursuing a career in the arts, using music as the catalyst for social, emotional and somatic awareness.
Along with having her master's degree from Manhattan School of Music, she credits discomfort and the nervous system as the teachers who have taught her the most.
Gina is attracted to those in history who are defiant, compassionate leaders.
Her favorite artist is Chavela Vargas.
