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 the sensitivity of chamber music. She has captivated 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, and 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 SWR Schwetzingen 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 Zürich, Vienna Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbhilharmonie, Royal Festival Hall London, and the Bozar in Brussels. She has sung leading opera roles at the Royal Opera House in London, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wiener Festwochen, Theater Bonn, and Staatstheater Saarbrücken.

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 d’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 Lukas-Passion (Orchestre Symphonique de Montéal, Kent Nagano), Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze), and 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. In 2019 she appeared on stage as Maiden in Toshio Hosokawa’s chamber opera Futari Shizuka in Thomas Israel’s staging at the Tongyeong International Festival.

Three concerts to open the 2020/21 season cannot take place as planned: the performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal under Pablo Heras-Casado as well as in Oslo under Andrew Manze had to be cancelled; Mahler's 8th Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko at the Royal Albert Hall had to be postponed until October 2022. Instead, the first half of the season features recitals with Götz Payer in Freiburg and at de Bijloke Gent. This is followed by Haydn's Stabat Mater with the Bachakademie Stuttgart and the work of the same title by Dvořák in Basel, as well as Brahms' Requiem at the end of the season with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

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 Grampophone Classical Music Award 2020.

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.

2020/21 season

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