Sarah Coburn
Resident Artist
Music
Music - Voice
Biography
Soprano Sarah Coburn has performed leading roles on many of the world’s great stages, including The Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, Boston Lyric Opera, Seattle Opera, Welsh National Opera, and Opéra de Montréal. In addition to decades of performing experience, she possesses a deep understanding of the emotional and psychological challenges facing professional musicians. Helping other musicians confront the challenges of performance anxiety gives her great joy. As a licensed psychotherapist, Ms. Coburn has a private practice in Tulsa where she specializes in couple therapy and treating adult individuals.
Recent seasons have included performing and recording Carlisle Floyd's Flower and Hawk, a monodrama about Eleanor of Aquitaine, with Odyssey Opera and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, a return to Seattle Opera as a soloist for their 60th Anniversary Gala, Lucia di Lammermoor with New York City Opera, Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Lucia di Lammermoor with Lyric Opera Kansas City, Adèle in Le comte Ory with Seattle Opera, the title role in Manon with Opera Santa Barbara, Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Atlanta Opera, concerts with tenor Lawrence Brownlee at both the Tivoli Festival with the Copenhagen Philharmonic and in Jurmala, Latvia, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, and Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Choral Arts Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center. Her critically acclaimed recording of Bellini’s I Puritani, featuring tenor Lawrence Brownlee and the Kaunas City Symphony and Kaunas State Choir, was released in 2021 on Delos Records.
Career highlights include the role of Amina in La sonnambula with the Wiener Staatsoper, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with Seattle Opera, Marie in La fille du regiment with Seattle Opera, Opera Carolina, and Tulsa Opera, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette with Tulsa Opera, and Adina in L’elisir d’amore with Washington National Opera. Ms. Coburn has performed the roles of Princess Yue-Yang in the world premiere production of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera opposite Placido Domingo, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Florida Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Tulsa Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera San Antonio, and Boston Lyric Opera; the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor with Washington National Opera, Tulsa Opera, New York City Opera and Utah Opera; Gilda in Rigoletto with Welsh National Opera, Opéra de Montréal, Los Angeles Opera, Portland Opera, Arizona Opera, Nashville Opera, Tulsa Opera and Cincinnati Opera; Asteria in Tamerlano with Washington National Opera and Los Angeles Opera; Vittoria in Pedrotti’s Tutti in maschera at Wexford Festival Opera, Euridice and Genio in Haydn’s L’anima del filosofowith the Handel & Haydn Society and Glimmerglass Opera, Elvira in I puritani with the Tivoli Festival, Boston Lyric Opera and Washington Concert Opera, Lakmé with Tulsa Opera, Lucie de Lammermoor with both Cincinnati Opera andGlimmerglass Opera, Linda di Chamounix at the Caramoor Festival, Amenaide inTancredi with Washington Concert Opera, and Giulietta in I Capuleti e I Montecchi with Glimmerglass Opera. Ms. Coburn has also performed with Glimmerglass Opera as the title character in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience as well as Sister Constance in Dialogues of the Carmelites, a role she reprised for New York City Opera.
Ms. Coburn created the role of Kitty in the world premiere of Anna Karenina at Florida Grand Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. She has sung Adele in Die Fledermaus with both Seattle Opera and Michigan Opera Theatre, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera with Opera Company of Philadelphia, Florida Grand Opera, and Cincinnati Opera, Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier with Cincinnati Opera, Norina in Don Pasquale, Adina in L’elisir d’amore with Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Charlottesville Opera, Sandrina in La finta giardiniera and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Florida Grand Opera.
Ms. Coburn has appeared in concert with Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic at the Tivoli Festival, The Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, and Handel & Haydn Society as soloist for Elijah and Messiah. She has also sung Messiah with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony and the United States Naval Academy, Carmina Burana with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Wind Symphony; and has joined the Seattle Symphony for Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
Ms. Coburn has appeared in concert with Bryn Terfel with Florida Grand Opera, as well as in a duo-recital for the United States Supreme Court; in recital with Lawrence Brownlee for the Vocal Arts Society, with Los Angeles Opera and the Mark Morris Dance Group in Handel’s “L’allegro, il penseroso, ed il moderato” and in recital at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Ms. Coburn has received awards from the George London Foundation, The Richard Tucker Foundation, The Jensen Foundation, The Liederkranz Foundation, Opera Index, and was a National Grand Finalist in the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
