Lauded as “exquisite” in the SF Chronicle for her summer 2023 performance as Renata in Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, Peruvian-America mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra’s recent work includes Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Princeton Festival, the title role in Astor Piazzolla’s María de Buenos Aires with Kentucky Opera, Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Scalia/Ginsburg with Chautauqua Opera Company, and the title role in Luisa Fernanda with Opera Williamsburg. Other notable engagements include work with Opera Omaha, Los Angeles Philharmonic, California Symphony, and Lucerne Festival.

Kelly’s 2023-24 engagements include Carlotta in Zorro with Opera Santa Barbara, the title role of Dolores with West Edge Opera, Handel’s Messiah at David Geffen Hall with the National Chorale, concerts at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, and concerts with Bayview Festival.

A strikingly versatile performer, Kelly is at home with many styles and eras of vocal music from Mozart to Héctor Lavoe. In the summer of 2022, she reprised the role of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Derrick Wang’s comic opera Scalia/Ginsburg at the Princeton Festival.

In 2022, she made her Los Angeles Philharmonic debut under the baton of John Adams in the Noon to Midnight Contemporary Festival and premiered Katherine Balch’s orchestral song cycle Illuminate with the California Symphony. Kelly was lauded as “brilliant” by the Santa Barbara Independent for her performance as Lupita in the mariachi opera Cruzar la Cara de la Luna with Opera Santa Barbara (2021). In 2021 she toured in the cast of (…Iphigenia) by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding in the role of Iphigenia Unbound, which was noted as “beautifully sung” (Washington Post).

Guerra won first place in Santa Barbara’s Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation competition in 2018, before her residency as a Young Artist with the Opera Santa Barbara Chrisman Studio. She was a recipient of a travel grant to Germany for language study from the Max Kade Foundation while completing her DMA at UC Santa Barbara. There Guerra "created a sensation" (BravoCalifornia) as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro.

As a recitalist, Guerra has been featured at the Lucerne Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, Chautauqua Symphony Chamber Music, and the Bard Music Festival. Guerra has performed as a soloist with several ensembles including the Albany Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Garden State Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, Contemporaneous, Opera Parallèle and BluePrint.

A first-generation American and native of Southern California, Kelly champions Spanish-language repertoire to welcome more diverse audiences into the concert hall.