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Photo by Liat Aharoni

about

Born and raised in Toronto, Sara Schabas has performed as a soloist across North America and Europe. She is currently a member of Barbara Hannigan's Equilibrium Young Artists, and 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 Theatre 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 and 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 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 Institut Canadien d'Art Vocal with the Orchestre Classique de Montréal conducted by Victorien Vanoosten and staged by Francois Racine, under the leadership of Nicole Car and Étienne Dupuis. 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, and debuts with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and the Grand Philharmonic Choir as the soloist in James Whitbourn’s Annelies.

 

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 with support from the Hnatyshyn Foundation of Canada. 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 Emmy Heim and 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.

Headshot by Jessica Osber

Headshot by Kirsten Miccoli

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Events

  • James Whitbourn's Annelies
    James Whitbourn's Annelies
    Sat, Nov 18
    Kitchener
    Nov 18, 7:30 p.m. – Nov 19, 9:00 p.m.
    Kitchener, 10 Huron Rd, Kitchener, ON N2P 2R7, Canada
    Soprano Soloist in James Whitbourn's Annelie Grand Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra cond. Mark Vuorinen
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  • Carl Orff's Carmina Burana
    Carl Orff's Carmina Burana
    Wed, Nov 22
    Montréal
    Nov 22, 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
    Montréal, 555 Rue Sherbrooke O, Montréal, QC H3A 1E3, Canada
    Soprano soloist with the McGill Symphony cond. Jean-Sebastien Vallée.
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  • Recital - in a dark blue night
    Recital - in a dark blue night
    Tue, Jan 09
    Toronto
    Jan 09, 2024, 12:00 p.m. – Jan 10, 2024, 1:00 p.m.
    Toronto, 145 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5H 4G1, Canada
    Sara Schabas, soprano & Isabelle David, piano Canadian Opera Company Free Concert Series
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  • The Flight of the Hummingbird - Dukdukdiya
    The Flight of the Hummingbird - Dukdukdiya
    Tue, Apr 02
    British Columbia, Canada
    Apr 02, 2024, 7:00 p.m. – May 31, 2024, 7:00 p.m.
    British Columbia, Canada
    Sara joins Vancouver Opera & Pacific Opera Victoria in a tour of British Columbia.
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Opera Repertoire:

Beethoven:

Marzelline (Fidelio)

Berg:

Lulu (Lulu) 

Bizet:

Laurette (Le docteur miracle)

Frasquita, Micaela (Carmen)

Bolcom:

Candace (A Wedding)

Goulet:

The Hummingbird (The Flight of the Hummingbird)

Gounod:

Juliette (Roméo et Juliette)

Handel: 

Morgana (Alcina)

Ginevra (Ariodante)

Heggie:

Krysztyna (Out of Darkness)

Sister Catherine (Dead Man Walking)

Livingston:

Anne Frank (Singing Only Softly)

Mozart:

Pamina, Papagena (Die Zauberflöte)

Ilia, Elettra (Idomeneo)

Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro)

Zerlina, Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni)

Puccini:

Lauretta (Gianni Schicci)

Genovieffa (Suor Angelica)

Musetta (La bohème)

Purcell:

Belinda, First Witch (Dido und Aeneas)

Raum:

Dormouse (The Garden of Alice)

Rossini:

Corinna (Il viaggio a Reims)

Richard Strauss:

Najade (Ariadne auf Naxos)

Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier)

Zdenka (Arabella)

Stravinsky:

Anne Truelove (The Rake’s Progress)

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Opera Canada, for Don Giovanni with Highlands Opera

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Concert Repertoire:

Bach:

Kantaten BWV 1, 11, 23, 29, 70, 105, 106 

Johannespassion

Barber:

Knoxville: Summer of 1915

Berg:

Sieben Frühe Lieder

Britten:

Les Illuminations

Brahms:

Ein Deutsches Requiem

Liebeslieder Wälzer

Handel: 

Messiah

Chandos Anthems

Mahler:

Symphony No. 4

Rückert Lieder

Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Mozart:

Mass in C Minor

Laudate Dominum

Poulenc:

Gloria

Schubert:

The Shepherd on the Rock

Stravinsky:

Three Japanese Lyrics

Two Poems of Konstantin Balmont

Whitbourn:

Annelies

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Gallery

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