American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen has been acclaimed at leading opera houses in Europe and the United States in a varied repertoire ranging from Mozart to Verdi and Wagner. She is making three important role debuts in 2019/20: Gounod’s Marguerite (Faust) as part of the Royal Opera House’s tour of Japan; Handel’s Alcina at the Dresden Semperoper; and Valentine in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Dresden audiences will also hear her as the Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier). Another of her signature roles – Donna Anna in Don Giovanni – will take her to the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Bavarian State Opera and the Opéra national de Bordeaux, where she will additionally sing the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro.
Previous engagements include the title role in Rusalka for the San Francisco Opera, the Marschallin at Glyndebourne, Elsa (Lohengrin) at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and the Zurich Opera, Countess Almaviva at the Metropolitan Opera and the Vienna State Opera, Donna Anna at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Houston Grand Opera and the Dresden Semperoper, Hélène (Les Vêpres siciliennes) at the Bavarian State Opera, Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) at the San Francisco Opera and Covent Garden, Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and with the Dresden Staatskapelle, Leonore (Fidelio) at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and Leonora (Il trovatore) at the Teatro Regio in Turin.
Rachel Willis-Sørensen spent three years as a member of the Dresden Semperoper, where she sang a number of leading roles, including Hanna Glawari (Die lustige Witwe), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Elettra (Idomeneo), Diemut in Richard Strauss’s Feuersnot, Rosalinde and Mimì (La bohème). She won first prize at the 2014 Operalia Competition in Los Angeles and at the 2011 Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna. She is a graduate of Brigham Young University and an alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio.
