Rachel Willis-Sørensen
American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen is known for her diverse repertoire ranging from Mozart to Wagner. A regular guest at the leading opera houses around the world, she has been hailed as possessing “an opulent lower register with triumphant high notes, and a dramatic investment which tears the spectator from his seat.” (Opéra Magazine).
Ms. Willis-Sørensen opens the 2020/21 season at Opéra national de Bordeaux with her role debut as Violetta in La Traviata. This is followed by her house debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu as Leonora in Il Trovatore. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she returns to the role of Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin, and makes her debut as Elisabeth in Verdi’sDon Carlo. To celebrate the holiday season, she performs Mimi in La Bohème opposite Jonas Kaufmann and Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus at the Bayerische Staatsoper. On the concert stage, she returns to Paris to perform with Karine Deshayes and Erwin Schrott as part of the Les Grandes Voix recital series at theThéâtre des Champs-Élysées.
Previous engagements included Rusalka (Rusalka) at the San Francisco Opera, Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier) at Glyndebourne, Semperoper Dresden and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Marguerite (Faust) as part of the Royal Opera House’s tour of Japan, Elsa (Lohengrin) at Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opernhaus Zurich, Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Metropolitan Opera and the Wiener Staatsoper, Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Wiener Staatsoper, Houston Grand Opera and Semperoper Dresden, Hélène (Les Vêpres siciliennes) at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Valentine (Les Huguenots) at the Grand Théâtre Genève, Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) at the San Francisco Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Rosalinda in J. Strauss’s (Die Fledermaus) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Staatskapelle Dresden, Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte) at the Houston Grand Opera, Leonora (Fidelio) at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, and Leonora (Il Trovatore) at the Teatro Regio di Torino.
Equally at home on the concert stage, she has performed Strauss’s Four Last Songs multiple times, including notably at Buckingham Palace for an HRH Prince Charles birthday celebration, and joined Jonas Kaufmann in 2019 and 2020 for a multi-city European tour in support of his latest recording, Wien,on which she is featured. Other repertoire includes Beethoven’s9th Symphony, and Mahler’s 8th and 2nd Symphonies, Dvorak’sStabat Mater, and the Verdi Requiem.
Rachel was a member of the ensemble at the Dresdner Semperoper for three years, where she sang the title role in (Die Lustige Witwe), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Elettra (Idomeneo), Diemut (Feuersnot), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) and Mimi (La bohème). She won first prize at the 2014 Operalia competition in Los Angeles and at the 2011 Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, and she was a winner of the 2010 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She holds both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Brigham Young University and is an alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. An active presence on social media, she can be found on instagram, facebook and tiktok @rachewillissorensen and on twitter under @RWSing.