KATHRYN LEWEK
SOPRANO
BIOGRAPHY
American soprano Kathryn Lewek is a born communicator. Combining charismatic stage presence with a voice of sumptuous range, crystalline purity, and rich emotional power, she headlines major productions at the foremost opera houses and festivals worldwide, from New York’s Metropolitan Opera to Austria’s Salzburg Festival. Triumphant in an increasing array of leading lyric and dramatic coloratura roles, including Mozart’s Queen of the Night, the signature role with which she has repeatedly broken records, Lewek also wins accolades for her orchestral collaborations and sensitive interpretations of contemporary art song.As the New York Times recognizes, “singing like Lewek’s is what the magic of opera is all about.”
Lewek continues to expand her range with new roles and repertoire this season. 2023-24 has already seen her make two title role débuts, first in Laurent Pelly’s season-opening new staging of Delibes’s Lakmé at Opéra de Nice, and then opposite her husband, tenor Zach Borichevsky, in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at Ohio’s Toledo Opera. In the world premiere of Music for New Bodies, a new DaCamera ensemble co-commission from Matthew Aucoin and Peter Sellars, she creates the soprano role at Houston’s Rice University. She graces three presentations of Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, singing Olympia at Dresden’s Semperoper and portraying all Four Heroines, both at Florida’s Palm Beach Opera and in a new production by Mariame Clément at Austria’s Salzburg Festival. To complete her operatic lineup, Lewek revisits Mozart’s Queen of the Night in staged productions of The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera, Semperoper, and with the Cleveland Orchestra. She also gaveher first concert performance as Madame Herz/Tonina in excerpts from Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor and Salieri’s Prima la musica e poi le parole with the Vienna Philharmonic at Salzburg’s 2024 Mozart Week Festival, and, as in previous years, joined the Oratorio Society of New York for holiday performances of Handel’s Messiah at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Her 2024-25 season will include role débuts as Micaëla in Carmenwith Nashville Opera and Musetta in La bohème with Opera Colorado, as well as a return to the Metropolitan Opera for both the holiday presentation of The Magic Flute and a reprisal of Simon McBurney’s full-length, German-language production of Die Zauberflöte, which she will also sing in a return to Staatsoper Berlin. [read more...]
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
"...the unquestioned star of the show is soprano Kathryn Lewek..." – Chicago Sun Times
Le Comte Ory – "But the unquestioned star of the show is soprano Kathryn Lewek, who revels in the preening role of a prima-donna opera singer portraying the spoiled Adèle in this opera within an opera, drawing cheers all afternoon long. With a lovely, high-flying soprano
voice, she handles the coloratura demands with thrilling ease."
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"...This is perhaps her most inspired turn to date..." – OperaWire
Die Zauberflöte – “Kathryn Lewek has become the Met Opera’s go-to Queen of the Night. Of her 44 performances at the Met to date, all of them have been in this role. And while it is easy to play this “villain” in one dimension, Lewek always seems to find shades and colors to explore. This is perhaps her most inspired turn to date.”
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"...Kathryn Lewek was utterly enthralling..." – The New York Times
Die Zauberflöte – “...the soprano Kathryn Lewek was utterly enthralling, emitting richly glowing bursts of notes like a collapsing star in “O zittre nicht.” She careered around the stage in a wheelchair during “Der Hölle Rache,” bringing thrilling drama to a coloratura showpiece so fiendish that sopranos are lucky to get through it when they’re standing stock still.”
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"...death-defying..." – Broadway World
Die Zauberflöte – “...the death-defying Kathryn Lewek…”
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"...one of opera’s most thrilling coloratura sopranos of this generation..." – BG Independent News
La Traviata – “Kathryn Lewek, who will be debuting the role of Violetta, has established herself as one of opera’s most thrilling coloratura sopranos of this generation. She has performed some of the most vocally challenging roles in the repertoire, joining the top-ranking operatic performers of all time”
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"...The effect is spellbinding..." – Classical Music
Apollo de Dafne – “Having led Handel’s Messiah, Orlando and Ariodante onstage, soprano Kathryn Lewek here turns to Handel cantatas. Her selection is shrewd: Armida abbandonata and Apollo e Dafne both channel technical, affective and dramatic prima donna power. Lewek wields this power majestically. . . Lewek builds on these distinctions in how she modulates her instrument and elaborates her melodies. Her Armida commands vocal muscle and jagged cadenzas, while her Dafne is all limpid purity sprinkled with agréments. The effect is spellbinding.”
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"...especially luscious at its stratospheric top..." – Opera News
Ariodante – “Lewek may not yet be as celebrated a performer as Bartoli, but here she is every bit as much a star. Her coloratura, more conventionally ‘bound’ than Bartoli’s, is consistently brilliant, and her voice is especially luscious at its stratospheric top. The central moment of her portrayal is the Act II aria 'Il mio crudel martoro'. Lewek turns it into a thirteen-minute tour de force of mournful utterance, using a seemingly shortness of breath to portray how profoundly the young woman has been wounded.”
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"... with eerie ease and enormous sound..." – The New York Times
Die Zauberflöte – “Indeed, when the soprano Kathryn Lewek, as the Queen of the Night, sang her character’s dazzling and demonic aria, many people started clapping halfway through, right after she dispatched the famous music’s bursts of coloratura passagework with eerie ease and enormous sound. Yes, she was quite a sight in her fantastical costume, a mothlike figure with multiple flapping wings. But it was her singing that had some children near me sitting up in their seats and breaking into applause.”
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"... Lewek sparkled both vocally and dramatically..." – operaexplorer
Orphee – “Kathryn Lewek sparkled both vocally and dramatically – she is a natural for such opera buffa or operetta type of roles”