Soprano Laura Bohn, a dynamic stage presence praised by Opera News for her “powerful" singing and "skillful" stagecraft, brings a vivid physicality and “lush” vocalism to her wide ranging repertoire, embodying the cutting edge of operatic performance.
Highlights of 2018 include Laura's Lincoln Center debut under the baton of Louis Langrée at the 2018 Mostly Mozart Festival as a soprano soloist (singing and dancing) in Bernstein's MASS, a reprise of the role which marked her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic early this year under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel. In March the soprano returned to The Dallas Opera where she had covered the role of the Governess in The Turn of the Screw in 2017 to cover (doublure) the role of Iris Marinus in Michel Van der Aa's 3-D opera, Sunken Garden. Laura will be the guest soloist on The Bernstein Celebration Tour with the Millennium Jazz Orchestra in major theaters throughout the Netherlands in 2018-19. Other upcoming engagements include her Benaroya Hall debut in a recital with Romanian American Chamber Concerts in Seattle and as a principal in Lev, a co-production of Silbersee and Theater Sonnevanck which will tour the Netherlands in the spring of 2019.
The soprano was recently featured in On Behalf of a Madman, a pastiche classical opera of works from Mozart to Rossini with The Grand Harmonie Orchestra in Boston, and sang Barber's Knoxville:Summer of 1915 in recitals throughout the Pacific Northwest. In 2017 Ms. Bohn toured the Netherlands and Belgium, including a return to the Operadagen Rotterdam, as Bellini’s Norma in Before I Die with I Solisti del Vento (BE) and Kameroperahuis (NL). Other performances last season included her role debut in Poulenc's one woman tour-de-force La voix humaine at National Sawdust in Brooklyn and Anna I in The Seven Deadly Sins of Weill/Brecht with Festival Opera in California, her performance hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "brilliant and physically intense".
The soprano’s 2016 season included Marzelline in Beethoven’s Fidelio with Grand Harmonie at Princeton in the first North American production on period instruments, the monodrama Black Water with the Center for Contemporary Opera at Symphony Space in New York, Adés' Powder Her Face at West Edge Opera in Oakland, in which her “powerfully sung Duchess exuded sadness and vulnerability under her steely elegance” (Opera News) and Fefjulka in UKSUS with Erling Wold Fabrications in San Francisco. In 2015 the soprano was seen as Ino in Händel's Semele at Operadagen Rotterdam, as Lucha in Chapter 22: Desperation of The Industry’s widely acclaimed Hopscotch mobile-opera in LA, as a soloist in concerts with the Hague Philharmonic (Het Residentie Orkest), the SacroProfano Baroque ensemble in New York and the Isaura String Quartet in LA.
An avid champion of modern music Laura has worked closely with many composers including Ellen Reid, Anne LeBaron, Erling Wold, Jherek Bischoff, Kamala Sankaram, Doug Balliett and Forrest Pierce. In 2015 she created the role of JFK’s mistress Mary Pinchot Meyer in the premiere of Le Baron's LSD: The Opera at Walt Disney Concert Hall’s REDCAT theater, Jezebel at the BRIC’s Look and Listen Festival in Brooklyn, and made her BIMhuis debut in Amsterdam with the David Kweksilber Big Band. Other career highlights include DJ Moz’art, a pastiche dance-opera celebrating the life and works of the composer which played over 40 performances in 2014 in major theaters throughout northern Europe to great critical acclaim. Ms. Bohn toured the Netherlands and Belgium in the fall of 2013 as Nerone in the reprise of MonteverdISH, an adaptation of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea which premiered in major theaters throughout northern Europe in 2011-12, including Amsterdam’s Stadsschouwburg and Berlin’s Konzerthaus. Bohn’s singing and dancing Nerone was met with wide acclaim; “Laura Bohn is truly formidable. . . it seemed as if the whole production were conceived for her . . .” (Voi-Z Festival).
Ms. Bohn was a young artist at the Teatro Real (Royal Opera of Spain) in Madrid (‘09-’10), Syracuse Opera in New York (’08) and was awarded the Luciano Pavarotti Memorial Scholarship to attend the renowned International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2010. A finalist in the 2009 Lotte Lenya Competition, other roles include The Governess in The Turn of the Screw, Micaela in La Tragedie de Carmen, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Juliette in Romeo et Juliette, Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte, Musetta in La Boheme, Serpina in La Serva Padrona and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. Laura has been featured in performances at the HERE Arts Center and the United Nations Assembly Hall in New York, The Olympic Music Festival in Seattle, the Walt Disney Concert Hall’s REDCAT theater in Los Angeles and at the San Francisco MOMA under the auspices of the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco.
A Seattle native, Ms. Bohn has studied voice and theater extensively in Rome and Reggio-Emilia, Italy respectively. She is a graduate of the Dell ‘Arte International School of Physical Theater, holds a BFA in Vocal Performance from the California Institute of the Arts and a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music.