Sari Gruber, soprano

Sari Gruber was awarded the first prize of the 2005 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation International Vocal Competition. With a song repertoire spanning nine languages, Ms. Gruber has appeared in recital at New York’s Alice Tully and Weill Recital Halls, as well as the 92nd Street Y and the Miller Theatre.

This season she sings Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with North Carolina Symphony and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette with Opera Carolina. Her 2006-07 season included several re-engagements, including Musetta in La bohème with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, New Year’s Eve concerts with the Boston Baroque, and the Mozart Requiem with the Berkshire Choral Festival. Ms. Gruber also appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performing Bach cantatas, in recital at Alice Tully Hall as presented by the Naumburg Foundation, and with the Handel and Haydn Society and the Houston Symphony in Messiah.

Ms. Gruber has sung Susanna, Nanetta in Falstaff, and Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel with New York City Opera; Alexandra in Regina for her debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Lisette in La rondine; Miss Hedgehog in the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox with the Los Angeles Opera; Carolina in Il matrimonio segreto; Aricie in Hippolyte et Aricie; Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro; and Varvara in Kát’a Kabanová with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

She made her debuts with the Pittsburgh Opera as Despina in Così fan tutte, and as Poppea in Agrippina with Boston Baroque. Other operatic highlights include Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel for Opera Columbus; her first performances of Beth in Little Women for Kentucky Opera; Norina in Don Pasquale with the Opera Company of Philadelphia; Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with both the Austin Lyric Opera and Opera Pacific; Rose in Street Scene with Portland Opera; and her first performances of Adina in L’elisir d’amore with Berkshire Opera. She has toured the United States as winner of the Naumburg Competition, has given recitals nationwide under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation and on San Francisco Opera’s Schwabacher Debut Recital Series. Her other recital credits include a pre-concert recital of Copland’s Poems of Emily Dickinson with the New York Philharmonic.  She has previously sung with NYFOS in Chicago performances of Evidence of Things Not Seen in 1998 and Songs of Peace and War in 2003.