Bio
Ms. Willis-Sørensen’s 2024/25 season includes four Verdi roles, an exciting bel canto role debut, and her house debut at Teatro di San Carlo. She begins her operatic season with a return to the role of Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) in concert with Les Musiciens du Louvre, conducted by Marc Minkowski. She then returns to the Metropolitan Opera to perform her first Verdi role of the season: Leonora (Il Trovatore), a role which she returns to in March 2025 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden In the winter, she makes her house debut at the Teatro di San Carlo with another Verdi role, Elisabetta in Don Carlo, and makes her house debut at the Philharmonie de Paris in a concert version of Verdi’s La Traviata under the baton of Jérémie Rhorer. In the Spring, Ms. Willis-Sørensen makes her role and house debut as the title-role in Bellini’s Norma at the Staatsoper Berlin. Returning to the Bayerische Staatsoper during the spring and summer months, her first engagement in Munich includes a return to the role of Elisabetta, followed by Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin. She makes her Bulgarian debut performing a Gala concert alongside Jonas Kaufmann and the Sofia Philharmonic in September, and returns to Carnegie Hall for the Richard Tucker Gala in October, having made her recital debut there last season. She makes her debut with the National Symphony Orchestra performing Strauss’ Four Last Songs conducted by Noseda and in the Summer, she performs Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with the Münchner Philharmoniker, followed by her final Verdi role of the season as the soprano in his Requiem with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Previous engagements include Elisabeth (Don Carlos) (in French) with Lyric Opera of Chicago and Grand Théâtre de Genève , Rusalka (Rusalka) at the San Francisco Opera and NDR Hamburg, Antonia (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) at Opéra national de Paris, Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier) at Glyndebourne, Semperoper Dresden, Santa Fe Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Violetta (La Traviata) at Opéra national de Bordeaux, LA Opera and the Bayerische Staatsoper, Marguerite (Faust) as part of the Royal Opera House’s tour of Japan, Elsa (Lohengrin) at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opernhaus Zurich, Bayerische Staatsoper and Oper Frankfurt, Desdemona (Otello) at the Wiener Staatsoper, LA Opera and the Bayerische Staatsoper, Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos) on tour to Hong Kong with the Bayerische Staatsoper, Mimi (La Bohème) at the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Wiener Staatsoper and Semperoper Dresden, Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper 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, Santa Fe Opera, and Semperoper Dresden, Hélène (Les Vêpres siciliennes) at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Elena in the Italian version (I Vespri Siciliani) at the Wiener 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, Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden and the Wiener Staatsoper, Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte) at the Houston Grand Opera, Leonore (Fidelio) at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, and Leonora (Il Trovatore) at the Teatro Regio di Torino, the Royal Opera House and Gran Teatre del Liceu.
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 recording, Wien, on which she is featured. She made her recital debut at Carnegie Hall in April 2024. Other repertoire includes Mahler’s 2nd, 4th and 8th Symphonies, Mendelssohn’s Elias, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and the Verdi Requiem.
In 2021, Rachel signed a multi-record deal with Sony Classical. Her debut album was released on April 8th, 2022, and her second CD, Strauss: Vier Letzte Lieder, came out on March 10th, 2023.
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 X under @RWSing.
