American soprano Olivia Boen is quickly gaining momentum for the “sun-streaked top of her register” (Chicago Tribune) and “full-bodied, sparkling tone” (Cleveland Classical) on operatic, concert, and recital stages alike. The 2024–25 season is a year of notable house and role debuts for Olivia, including a highly acclaimed performance as Alice in Verdi’s Falstaff at Opéra national de Paris and Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte for Detroit Opera. Elsewhere Olivia makes a trio of Mozart role debuts for the Staatsoper Hamburg: Servilia in La clemenza di Tito, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, and Sifare in Mitridate, re di Ponto. Until the 2023–24 season, Olivia was a member of the Opernstudio at the Staatsoper Hamburg, where she sang Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème, and Anna in Verdi’s Nabucco, in addition to creating the roles of Xenia in Frank Castorf’s new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Ines in Immo Karaman’s new production of Verdi’s Il trovatore. On the concert platform, Olivia’s recent and upcoming plans include the title role in Das Paradies und die Peri at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel in a concert performance with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, Beethoven’s “Ah! perfido” with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Annina in La traviata in concert performances at the Philharmonie de Paris with Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, and Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the Grant Park Music Festival. In the 2025–26 season Olivia will return to the Opéra national de Paris. In 2019, Olivia made her European debut at the Verbier Festival under the baton of Valery Gergiev as Die Stimme des Falken in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and as Erste Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Stanislav Kochanovsky. Other roles include Countess Susanna in Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna, Queen Mother in Jonathan Dove’s The Little Green Swallow, the title roles in Handel’s Alcina and Serse and Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias, and Lauretta in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and she has covered Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

A keen recitalist, Olivia has given recitals at Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, the London Song Festival, Opera Holland Park, the Verbier Festival, LSO St Luke’s, the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series, and the Ravinia Festival, and toured with the Oxford International Song Festival. Olivia has collaborated on outreach projects with the London Symphony Orchestra and Opera Holland Park, was a member of the Wigmore French Song Exchange led by Dame Felicity Lott and François Le Roux, and was a Samling Artist, a 2021 City Music Foundation Artist, and a Steans Music Institute vocal fellow at the Ravinia Festival. Olivia was awarded the English Song Prize from the London Song Festival in 2019, first place (Lynne Cooper Harvey Foundation Award) at the Musicians Club of Women Competition in 2018, a grant from the Frank Huntington Beebe Fund for Musicians in 2018, and first place at the Tuesday Musical Competition in 2017. Olivia trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she was a 2021 Gold Medal finalist, and has completed additional training at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Verbier Festival, Internationale Meistersinger Akademie, and the Ravinia Steans Music Institute.

photo credit: Simon Pauly

Artist sponsorship for Olivia Boen is provided by Lisa S. Applebaum.