Sarah Wegener

“Wegener’s ability cannot be disputed. The placement of her voice is flawless, she has the complete range of ambitious tone colour, superb timbre that still remains smooth even at a high volume, and perfect legato.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Sarah Wegener approaches every role with intensity, as if it were chamber music. She enthrals listeners with the richness and warmth of her voice, for example in performances of Mahler’s 8th Symphony under 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 recently presented at the SWR Schwetzingen Festival. Her “marvellously radiant voice, as powerful as it is rich in colour” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) marks her out as a Lieder singer of the highest order, as shown on her highly-praised current CD Into the Deepest Sea. On the opera stage, she made successful debuts at the Royal Opera House in London and the Deutsche Oper Berlin in Georg Friedrich Haas’ Morgen und Abend.
Her remarkable versatility has ensured long-standing collaborations with her musical partners, such as the conductors Kent Nagano, Emilio Pomàrico, Peter Rundel, Tonu Kaljuste, Heinz Holliger and Frieder Bernius. Concerts and recitals have taken her to the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the RuhrTriennale and the Handel Festival Halle, as well as the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Tonhalle Zürich, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Philharmonie Köln, the Casa da Música Porto and the Bozar in Brussels. She has sung leading opera roles at the Wiener Festwochen, the Theater Bonn and the Staatstheater Saarbrücken.
Highly regarded as a performer of both classical and romantic repertoire, as well as contemporary compositions, Sarah Wegener recently sang 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) and, in a sensational concert in Graz, Strauss‘ Vier letzte Lieder. 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 2010 by Opernwelt magazine. With the NDR Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Hengelbrock she performed Dunkle Saiten by Jörg Widmann, who also dedicated the solo part in his work Labyrinth III to her; a recording of the work with the WDR Symphony Orchestra was released in summer 2018.
Sarah Wegener’s discography includes recordings of Korngold’s Die stumme Serenade, Schubert’s Lazarus and Mozart’s C minor Mass as well as Fauré’s Pélleas et Mélisande and Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle.Into the Deepest Sea, her first Lieder recording with the pianist Götz Payer, was released in November 2017 on CAvi-music.

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.