Sara Schabas
soprano
Headshots by Gaetz Photography, 2024
Praised for her “beautifully clear, light lyric soprano” (Ludwig Van), Sara Schabas has performed as a soloist across North America and Europe. She is the 2024 winner of the Wirth Vocal Prize and a recent alumna of Barbara Hannigan's Equilibrium Young Artists. Sara performs a mixture of standard operatic repertoire as well as contemporary and baroque. She recently premiered the title role in Maxime Goulet’s The Flight of the Hummingbird with Pacific Opera Victoria and Vancouver Opera, returning the following season to sing as the Dormouse in POV’s filmed production of Elizabeth Raum’s The Garden of Alice.
Sara began her career singing Papagena (Die Zauberflöte) with the Dayton Opera in Ohio and Juliette (Roméo et Juliette) with the Aspen Opera Theater as well as Mahler's Fourth Symphony under the baton of the late Maestro Lorin Maazel. She has been a district winner at the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, Canada's Eckhardt-Grammaté Competition, the Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques, the IRCPA's Singing Stars of Tomorrow, was recently nominated for the Dora Award for Outstanding Performance by an Individual for her performance of Anne Frank in Cecilia Livingston's Singing Only Softly.
"Sara Schabas was a delightfully coy Zerlina, singing a very sensuous 'Vedrai, carino'."
Dawn Martens, Opera Canada
Sara recently worked with Vienna’s Concentus Musicus after moving to Vienna as a grant winner with the Hnatyshyn Foundation and gave a recital in the Zürich Opera House’s Spiegelsaal with Canadian pianist Marie-Ève Scarfone. She performed as Henri in Tapestry Opera’s Dora-nominated production of Bandits in the Valley and recorded her debut album with Red Shift Records of Amy Brandon's The Bond, with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. As a soloist, she has performed with orchestras including the Dayton Philharmonic, Oakville Chamber Symphony, the Missisauga Symphony, Thirteen Strings, the Rockford Symphony Orchestra and the Bach-Elgar Choir. Her operatic repertoire includes Susanna, Lauretta, Corinna (Il viaggio a Reims), Anne Truelove, Juliette, Pamina, Gretel, and numerous other roles.
This season, Sara sings Musetta in La bohème with the Orchestre Classique de Montréal and ICAV conducted by Victorien Vanoosten and staged by Francois Racine. She gives a recital in the Canadian Opera Company’s Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, including the Canadian premiere of Pulitzer-nominated composer Alex Weiser's in a dark blue night, debuts with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and the Grand Philharmonic Choir as the soloist in James Whitbourn’s Annelies, and sings Eve in the Canadian premiere of Jonathan Dove’s The Walk from the Garden with the Little Opera Company of Winnipeg.
David Jaeger, The Wholenote Magazine
Sara holds degrees from the University of Toronto (Hon. Voice Perf., Eng. Literature Minor) and Roosevelt University (M.Mus., Siragusa Endowed Scholarship) with additional studies at Vienna’s Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst. She is a certified yoga teacher and a founding board member of the charity Sharing Notes, which brings free musical performances to hospitals and prisons. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies at McGill University researching the Austrian-Canadian mezzo-soprano. Emmy Heim She is the new editor of Art Song Canada e-magazine, writes for the classical music newsletter Ludwig Van among other publications (read some of her writings here!) and is fluent in English, German and French.
Non monsieur mon mari (Les mamelles de Tirésias) - Francis Poulenc
Alexey Shafirov, Piano
In trutina (Carmina Burana) - Carl Orff
Jean-Sébastien Vallée, Conductor
Two poems of Konstantin Balmont & Three Japanese Lyrics - I. Stravinsky
Barbara Hannigan, Conductor
"Was ich bin" (What I Am) - A film project with Manitoba Opera & Coffeeshop Creative
Geoffrey Conquer, Piano
