June 12–21: American soprano Kathryn Lewek sings first Gilda at Cincinnati Opera, before reprising role for LA Opera debut

(June 2025) — American soprano Kathryn Lewek continues to expand her range with both a key role debut and a major house debut this month. After making her first appearances as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto at Cincinnati Opera (June 12 & 14), she reprises the role opposite Quinn Kelsey in performances that mark her LA Opera debut (June 18 & 21). As the world’s reigning Queen of the Night, she completes her summer with semi-staged performances of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte on a European tour with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (Aug 27–Sep 7). As The New York Times puts it, “Singing like Lewek’s is what the magic of opera is all about.”

Role debut in Cincinnati; house debut in L.A.

A born communicator who combines charismatic stage presence with a voice of range, purity, and rich emotional power, Lewek is winning plaudits in an increasing array of leading lyric and dramatic coloratura roles. Recent firsts include title role debuts in Lakmé and Roméo et Juliette; role debuts as Micaëla in Carmen and Musetta in La bohème; and her company role debut as all Four Heroines in Mariame Clément’s new production of Les contes d’Hoffmann at last summer’s Salzburg Festival. A tour-de-force of singing, acting, and storytelling, Lewek’s performance was a bona fide triumph, prompting the UK’s Financial Times to marvel:

“In Kathryn Lewek, who sings all of Hoffmann’s women, Clément has found an ideal protagonist – strong, charismatic and with both secure coloratura of bell-like purity and a warm, seductive lower range. This doll is nobody’s plaything; this woman is an artist on the hunt for equality.”

Now Lewek takes on Verdi’s Gilda, embracing the challenge of portraying a character of whom it has been said that “the hardest task, both dramatically and vocally, falls to the Gilda, at first a coloratura ingenue, later a passionate if horrifyingly misguided victim in love with her rapist” (The Arts Desk, UK).

In both Cincinnati and Los Angeles, she stars in productions of Rigoletto by Atlanta Opera General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun. Cincinnati Opera revives the director’s 2014 staging, an “energetic, traditional Rigoletto” that places “straightforward theatrical storytelling as the main agenda” (The Boston Globe). Lewek makes her role debut with two performances as Gilda under the baton of John Fiore, a conductor who finds “both the power and the grace in Verdi’s music” (The New York Times). Her co-stars include baritone Michael Chioldi, in a reprise of his “triumph in the title role” (Bachtrack) at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, with the soprano’s husband, tenor Zach Borichevsky – a top prizewinner at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition – as the sadistic Duke of Mantua (June 12 & 14).

Just days later, Lewek makes her LA Opera debut in Zvulun’s acclaimed 2019 production of Rigoletto. Updating the action of the opera to Mussolini’s Italy, a realm of glittering grandeur that’s rotten to the core, this has been hailed as “a compelling staging” that offers “the sort of experience that becomes a treasured memory” (Texas Classical Review). Under the leadership of Music Director James Conlon, Lewek sings opposite Quinn Kelsey, today’s premier Verdi baritone, in his signature role as Rigoletto, with Mexican-American tenor René Barbera as the Duke, in which part he previously proved “absolutely stunning” (Texas Classical Review). Stepping in to replace Rosa Feola, who was originally scheduled to sing Gilda, Lewek graces the final two performances of the company’s Rigoletto run (June 18 & 21).

While new to Rigoletto, Lewek is no stranger to Verdi’s music. When she made her title role debut as Violetta in a new treatment of La traviata at Toledo Opera, the Toledo Blade reported:

“She sang it as if she had sung it hundreds of times. … Her big voice is at her command as she comes down from the heights of Act I through the rest of the opera. We knew she could handle ‘Sempre Libera’ because she can sing the Queen of the Night in her sleep. But in the later acts, as in her duet with Alfredo’s father as he wears her down to leave his son, she employs mezzo voce where other sopranos sometimes continue full throttle, with emotion, yes, but without the modulation that can be more effective than any bit of physical acting can be. Her ‘Tu m’amis’ brought tears to my eyes. … All in all, don’t miss to see Lewek’s first Violetta. It’s obvious it won’t be her last.”

Indeed, audiences can look forward to seeing Lewek reprise the role at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where she has been engaged to headline La traviata in seasons to come.

European tour with Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

To complete her summer lineup, Lewek joins Germany’s Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and its Principal Guest Conductor, Finland’s Tarmo Peltokoski, for semi-staged concert performances of Die Zauberflöte. After kicking off at Musikfest Bremen (Aug 27), their tour takes them to Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie (Aug 28); the Konzerthaus Dortmund, where they launch the venue’s 2025-26 season (Aug 31); and the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest (Sep 7).

Since making her first appearance as Mozart’s Queen of the Night in Berlin in 2011, Lewek has sung the formidably challenging role more than 300 times, including a record-breaking 85 at the Metropolitan Opera. Last month, in her most recent appearances at the New York house, she “demonstrated why – for more than a decade – she’s been the world’s go-to Queen of the Night. She imbued her first aria with gut-wrenching pathos, her second with astonishing ferocity” (The Observer). As The New Yorker’s Alex Ross observes, “she executes this stratospherically difficult role better than anyone alive.”

Kathryn Lewek: summer engagements

June 12 & 14
Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati Opera
VERDI: Rigoletto (Gilda; role debut)

June 18 & 21
Los Angeles, CA
LA Opera (debut)
VERDI: Rigoletto (Gilda; company debut)

Aug 27–Sep 7
European tour with Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
   Aug 27: Bremen, Germany (Musikfest Bremen)
   Aug 28: Hamburg, Germany (Elbphilharmonie Summer Festival)
   Aug 31: Dortmund, Germany (Konzerthaus season opening)
   Sep 7: Bucharest, Romania (George Enescu Festival)
MOZART: Die Zauberflöte (Queen of the Night)