mezzo-soprano
noun
a voice or voice part intermediate in compass between soprano and contralto.
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mezzo-soprano
American
[met-soh-suh-pran-oh, -prah-noh, med-zoh-, mez-oh-]
/ ˈmɛt soʊ səˈpræn oʊ, -ˈprɑ noʊ, ˈmɛd zoʊ-, ˈmɛz oʊ- /
noun
-
mezzo-sopranos,
plural
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mezzo-soprani
plural
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a voice or voice part intermediate in compass between soprano and contralto.
-
a person having such a voice.
adjective
mezzo-soprano
British
noun
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Sometimes shortened to: mezzo. a female voice intermediate between a soprano and contralto and having a range from the A below middle C to the F an eleventh above it
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a singer with such a voice
mezzo soprano
Cultural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mezzo-soprano
Borrowed into English from Italian around 1745–55
Explanation
In classical music, a mezzo-soprano is the second-highest singing voice. While they don't sing the very highest notes, mezzo-sopranos reach higher registers than contraltos. In Italian, mezzo means "middle," and soprano, "the treble in music," is from a root meaning "above." Mezzo-sopranos are right in the middle, between soprano and contralto voices. Classical music lovers describe mezzo-sopranos as sounding darker and richer than the brighter, higher tone of a soprano. If you want be an opera or choral singer but you can't quite reach those high notes, you may be a mezzo-soprano!
Vocabulary lists containing mezzo-soprano
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
For celebrated US mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, taking on the piece at the current time was necessary.
From Barron's ● Apr. 5, 2026
A CBE has been conferred to mezzo-soprano Alice Coote.
From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2025
Mr. Blier, who co-founded the New York Festival of Song in 1988, recounts his proudest accomplishments—among them working with the mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, who “turned every song into an intimate duet.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
The sublimity of this “Oedipe” is fateful thanks to the festival’s probing new artistic director, Finnish mezzo-soprano Lilli Paasikivi.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2025
Mrs. Harriett E. Freeman, an excellent mezzo-soprano, leading the singing of Quinn-Chapel choir, has been complimented by the press.
From Music and Some Highly Musical People by James M. Trotter
O’Connor, a multi-octave mezzo soprano of extraordinary emotional range who was recognizable by her shaved head, began her career singing on the streets of Dublin and soon rose to international fame.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 8, 2023
Gwyn Hughes Jones gave a brilliant turn as the doomed Manrico, his steely tenor a perfect match for mezzo soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis, whose Azucena was fire all night.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 23, 2022
Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt will deliver a remembrance and there will be a pair of musical selections from mezzo soprano Denyce Graves, with Lauren Ward on piano.
From Fox News ● Sep. 25, 2020
TV star June Whitfield, mezzo soprano Sarah Connolly and 100-year-old Gone with the Wind actress Olivia de Havilland also join Dame Julie as new dames.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2017
A high-bosomed young woman with a powerful mezzo soprano that pulled her mouth to a rhomboid sang Santuzza's famous aria from "Cavalleria Rusticana," stopping suddenly to some unseen signal.
From Star-Dust by Fannie Hurst
Tolerable baritones have been transformed into very mediocre tenors, capable mezzo-soprani into very indifferent dramatic soprani, and so on.
From Style in Singing by W. E. Haslam
Anderson’s life and legacy — she died in 1993 at 96 — are discussed here by interviewees including the tenor George Shirley and the mezzo-sopranos Denyce Graves and J’nai Bridges.
From New York Times ● Feb. 7, 2022
That same year, one of the group’s two mezzo-sopranos, Caroline Shaw, won the Pulitzer Prize for music for her piece “Partita for 8 Voices.”
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 4, 2019
Among the guest vocalists are baritone Kevin Deas, mezzo-sopranos Sheila Houlahan and Kristen Choi, and tenor Ross Hauck.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 6, 2018
Heggie has long cultivated top singers, particularly mezzo-sopranos.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2016
The Tennessee-born Metropolitan Opera star, one of the world's most sought-after mezzo-sopranos since the early 1970s, prefers to keep her two lives separate.
From 100 New Yorkers of the 1970s by Max Millard
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
