Sarah Wegener

Wegener’s ability is undisputed. Her vocal placement is flawless: she has a full range of ambitious tonal shading, a superb timbre that remains smooth even at a high volume, and perfect legato. Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Sarah Wegener approaches every role with captivating intensity. She has enthralled listeners with the warmth and richness of her voice in performances such as Strauss’ Orchestral songs under Mariss Jansons and Vladimir Jurowski in Munich, London, and Hamburg, Mahler’s 8th Symphony under Kirill Petrenko in Bregenz, Eliahu Inbal in Hamburg, and Kent Nagano in Montreal, as well as in her War and Peace programme shaped around works by Handel and Purcell, which she also presented at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. Her “marvellously radiant voice, as powerful as it is rich in colour” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) distinguishes her as a lieder singer of the highest order, as illustrated on her highly praised current CD Into the Deepest Sea.

Her remarkable versatility has ensured long-standing collaborations with her musical partners, including the conductors Kent Nagano, Emilio Pomàrico, Peter Rundel, Tonu Kaljuste, Heinz Holliger, and Frieder Bernius. Concerts and recitals have taken her to the Salzburg Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Ruhrtriennale, and Handel Festival Halle, as well as the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Konzerthaus Berlin, Tonhalle Zurich, Vienna Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie, Royal Festival Hall London, and the Bozar in Brussels. She has sung leading roles at the Royal Opera House in London, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wiener Festwochen, Theater Bonn, Staatstheater Saarbrücken, and Tongyeong Festival in South Korea.

Highly regarded as a performer of both classical and Romantic repertoire as well as contemporary compositions, Sarah Wegener recently sang Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri (Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, Jérémie Rhorer), Dvořak’s Stabat Mater, and Haydn’s Sieben letzte Worte (Philippe Herreweghe, Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Collegium Vocale Gent), Hans Werner Henze’s Floß der Medusa (Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Cornelius Meister), Krzystof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion (Orchestre symphonique de Montéal, Kent Nagano), Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze), as well as Schönberg’s Six Orchestral Songs in Saarbrücken. She has given the premiere of numerous works by Georg Friedrich Haas, including the opera Bluthaus, for which she was chosen as Singer of the Year in 2011 by Opernwelt magazine.

The 2021/22 season begins for Sarah Wegener with recitals in Calw, Berlin, and at the International-Hugo-Wolf-Academy in Stuttgart. She will perform Mozart's Requiem in Lille before making her debut as Freia in Wagner's Rheingold, which will be performed in Cologne and Amsterdam with Concerto Köln under Kent Nagano. In January 2022, she can be heard in Hamburg at the fifth anniversary of the Elbphilharmonie with Jörg Widmann's Arche. Other upcoming engagements include concerts with the Vlaams Radiokoor in Belgium, Schubert evenings with the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France and Michael Hofstetter in Paris, and Beethoven's Missa solemnis with Sylvain Cambreling and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. She then returns to the role of Peri in Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri with Jérémie Rhorer and Le Cercle de l'Harmonie, this time at the Cologne Philharmonie, and goes on to sing first soprano in Mahler's Symphony no. 8 with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä.

Sarah Wegener’s discography includes recordings of Penderecki’s St Luke Passion, Korngold’s Die stumme Serenade, Schubert’s Lazarus and Mozart’s C minor Mass, Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle, as well as works by Heinz Holliger and György Kurtág. Into the Deepest Sea, her first lieder recording with the pianist Götz Payer, was released in November 2017 on CAvi-music. At the OPUS Klassik 2019 she was nominated as Singer of the Year for Jörg Widmann’s work, Labyrinth III, in which the composer dedicated the solo part to her. Her latest recording with Heinz Holliger, Zwiegespräche (EMC 2019), has been shortlisted for the Gramophone Classical Music Award 2020. Her most recent recording with Philippe Boesman's Trakl Lieder debuted in June 2021. In autumn 2021, her new Lied CD with Götz Payer will be released by CAvi, this time with a focus on Richard Strauss.

Following her double bass studies, the British-German soprano studied singing with Prof. Jaeger-Böhm in Stuttgart and took part in masterclasses with Dame Gwyneth Jones and Renée Morloc.

Season 2021/22

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