Full 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 debuts, 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 gave her 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.
Last season, Lewek made role debuts as Countess Adèle in Rossini’s Le comte Ory at Lyric Opera of Chicago and as Offenbach’s Four Heroines at Deutsche Oper Berlin. She reprised the title role of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, as seen at Toledo Opera and her Opera Carolina house debut, in a new production for Opéra de Nice. Highlights of earlier seasons include her Salzburg Festival and role debuts as Ginevra opposite Cecilia Bartoli in a new Christoph Loy production of Handel’s Ariodante, with which Lewek traveled to Opera Monte Carlo before returning to Salzburg to make her role debut as Eurydice in Barrie Kosky’s new staging of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. Other key firsts include her house and role debuts as Teresa, in a new Terry Gilliam production of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, and as Cunegonde, in Francesca Zambello’s new treatment of Bernstein’s Candide for Glimmerglass Opera. It was Lewek who created the role of Jessica in the Bregenz Festival’s world premiere production of André Tchaikowsky’s The Merchant of Venice, winner of the International Opera Award for Best World Premiere of 2014.
Lewek is today’s reigning Queen of the Night. Since making her first appearance as Mozart’s antiheroine in 2011, she has sung the formidably challenging role more than 300 times with leading companies worldwide. These include London’s Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, Madrid’s Teatro Real, the Royal Danish Opera, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where she has performed it a record-breaking 64 times. As the New Yorker’s Alex Ross observes, “she executes this stratospherically difficult role better than anyone alive.”
Lewek’s other notable operatic engagements include her portrayal of Konstanze in Alison Moritz’s season-opening new production of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail for Lyric Opera of Kansas City, following previous appearances in the role at Deutsche Oper Berlin and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera. She made her house and title role debuts in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda at Canada’s Edmonton Opera; gave her first performances as La Fée in New Orleans Opera’s company premiere of Massenet’s Cendrillon; and sang Angelica in Handel’s Orlando on a European tour with Italy’s Il Pomo d’Oro ensemble, after debuting the role at Australia’s Hobart Baroque Festival, for which she won the coveted Helpmann Award. At Toledo Opera, where she is a firm audience favorite, Lewek has made role debuts as Violetta in a new treatment of Verdi’s La traviata, as Rosina in a new staging of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, and as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, as well as in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor.
When Lewek made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Oratorio Society of New York in 2012, she impressed the New York Times with the “communicative verve and thrilling beauty” of her performance. This marked the first of her annual performances of Handel’s Messiah at the venue, for which she has since returned each holiday season with both the Oratorio Society and Musica Sacra New York. Other concert highlights include “Celebrating Leonard Bernstein at 100” with Washington National Opera, Bach’s B-minor Mass with Chicago’s Soli deo Gloria ensemble, his Christmas Oratorio with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Dallas Symphony, and Haydn’s Creation under John Nelson’s leadership. Performing choral works by Bach, Brahms, Carissimi, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Monteverdi, Mozart, Orff, Verdi and Zelenka, she has appeared at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall and other venues with ensembles including the Rochester Philharmonic, Santa Barbara Symphony and Chicago’s Music of the Baroque. She also regularly performs in gala concerts and solo recitals nationwide, sometimes in collaboration with her husband, tenor Zach Borichevsky. In response to the global food crisis, the couple recently streamed a special concert to benefit the United Nations World Food Program.
Lewek made her operatic album debut with a pair of German rarities, Orff’s Gisei and Weingartner’s Die Dorfschule, both recorded live for the CPO label at Deutsche Oper Berlin. More recently, two of her Salzburg successes were captured live for Blu-Ray DVD release by Unitel Edition: Ariodante and Orphée aux Enfers, which was nominated for a 2021 International Classical Music Award. Other operatic releases include Handel’s Apollo e Dafne and Armida abbandonata, both recorded with Il Pomo D’Oro for Pentatone. Her star turn in the Metropolitan Opera’s Magic Flute has twice streamed live to cinema audiences worldwide in the company’s award-winning Live in HD series: first in Julie Taymor’s holiday production and then, capturing the soprano’s record-breaking 50th Met performance as Mozart’s Queen of the Night, in the celebrated staging by Simon McBurney. Lewek also performs contemporary American art song on two Albany Records titles: Kathryn Lewek sings Cary Ratcliff, recorded with the composer at the piano, and Quicksilver, which features her account of David Liptak’s Songs for Persephone.
At the 2013 Operalia World Opera Competition, Kathryn Lewek took two top prizes, the highly competitive Audience Favorite Award among them. A graduate of the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in voice performance and literature, she lives in Connecticut with her husband and their two young children.
© CSAM, February 2024
