Sarah Wegener

Sarah Wegener brings captivating intensity to every role she performs. With her warm timbre, she has thrilled audiences in orchestral songs by Strauss under Mariss Jansons and Vladimir Jurowski, in Strauss’s Four Last Songs conducted by Daniel Harding, and in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony under the batons of Kirill Petrenko, Vasily Petrenko, James Conlon, Eliahu Inbal, and Kent Nagano. Her “wonderfully radiant, powerful and colorful voice” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) also establishes her as an outstanding Lied interpreter, as heard on her widely praised recordings Into the Deepest Sea and Zueignung. A highlight of the past season was her acclaimed debut in the role of Sieglinde; she performed the part in concert versions of Wagner’s Die Walküre with the Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln under Kent Nagano in Prague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden, and Lucerne.

Equally admired for her interpretations of both classical and romantic repertoire as well as contemporary compositions, Sarah Wegener has recently performed Luonnotar by Sibelius (Andris Nelsons, Gewandhausorchester), Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri (Jérémie Rhorer and Le Cercle de l’Harmonie), Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion (Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Kent Nagano), Bernstein’s Kaddish (MDR Symphony Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies), and Schönberg’s Sechs Orchesterlieder (Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Emilio Pomàrico). Her program “War and Peace”, woven around works by Handel and Purcell, was performed with Ensemble il capriccio, including at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. She has also premiered numerous works by Georg Friedrich Haas, including the opera Bluthaus. In 2021, she made her debut as Freia in Wagner’s Das Rheingold in Cologne and Amsterdam with Concerto Köln and Kent Nagano.

She has appeared in concerts and recitals at the Salzburg Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Festival de Lanaudière, Chigiana International Festival, Handel Festival in Halle, as well as at Suntory Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Konzerthaus and Philharmonie Berlin, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Tonhalle Zurich, Wiener Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie de Paris, the Royal Albert Hall, and the Royal Festival Hall in London. Operatic engagements in leading roles have taken her to the Royal Opera House in London, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Wiener Festwochen, and the Tongyeong Festival in South Korea.

Sarah Wegener’s discography includes recordings of Boesmans’s Trakl-Lieder, Korngold’s Die stumme Serenade, Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor, Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle, and works by György Kurtág, Elliott Carter, and Heinz Holliger (both works by and in collaboration with him). Her recording of Jörg Widmann’s Drittes Labyrinth, whose solo part was written specifically for her, earned her a nomination as “Singer of the Year” at the 2019 OPUS Klassik awards. Her second Lied album with Götz Payer, released in 2021 and focused on Richard Strauss, was also nominated for an OPUS Klassik award. Most recently, a recording of songs arranged by Bernd Alois Zimmermann with the WDR Symphony Orchestra was released by WERGO and awarded the Choc de Classica, Diapason d’Or, and the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. A recording of Hans Werner Henze’s oratorio Das Floß der Medusa, conducted by Cornelius Meister with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, was released in 2023.

The British-German soprano, who is also a trained double bassist, studied voice with Professor Jaeger-Böhm in Stuttgart and in masterclasses with Dame Gwyneth Jones and Renée Morloc. Since the autumn semester of 2024, Sarah Wegener has been teaching voice as a principal subject at the Hochschule der Künste in Zurich.