Dutch-American soprano Katharine Dain maintains an active performance calendar in opera, chamber music, and oratorio throughout Europe and North America. 2018 saw her role debut as Konstanze in a production of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (performed in Rouen-Normandie, Avignon, Clermont-Ferrand, Reims, and Massy) to great acclaim: “coloratura of ideal precision and phrasing like a dream, in an unending crescendo of inspiration … her tragic arias were the highlight of the evening” (Opera Online). In 2019 she will sing Mozart’s Donna Anna with the Armel Opera Festival (in Ecuador and Budapest) as well as with the Orchestra of the 18th Century under Kenneth Montgomery. A fierce advocate of the contemporary repertoire, her debut with the Dutch National Opera was in Claude Vivier Kopernikus (Coloratura Soprano), a production of its Talent Development Programme.
Dutch-American soprano Katharine Dain maintains an active performance calendar in opera, chamber music, and oratorio throughout Europe and North America. 2018 saw her role debut as Konstanze in a production of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (performed in Rouen-Normandie, Avignon, Clermont-Ferrand, Reims, and Massy) to great acclaim: “coloratura of ideal precision and phrasing like a dream, in an unending crescendo of inspiration … her tragic arias were the highlight of the evening” (Opera Online). In 2019 she will sing Mozart’s Donna Anna with the Armel Opera Festival (in Ecuador and Budapest) as well as with the Orchestra of the 18th Century under Kenneth Montgomery. A fierce advocate of the contemporary repertoire, her debut with the Dutch National Opera was in Claude Vivier Kopernikus (Coloratura Soprano), a production of its Talent Development Programme.
Katharine Dain is the revelation of the evening. Her ample and silky voice, supple phrasing and warm timbre are apparent from her first aria. The young soprano marries dramatic power and enormous vocal agility without ever stepping outside of Mozart’s style.
ÔLYRIX
Mozart has unquestionably found in the beautiful American soprano Katharine Dain an ideal Konstanze. Fluent high range, expressive middle, virtuosity without excess, dramatic intelligence: her “Martern aller Arten” promises us a splendid heroine.
FORUM OPERA
Katharine is becoming known for unusual musical imagination, intelligence, and fearlessness. She is frequently asked to jump in for high-profile performances of obscure repertoire, including Luigi Nono’s Il Canto Sospeso at the Holland Festival under Ingo Metzmacher, performances of Tavener, Gubaidulina, and Ravel at Ireland’s West Cork Chamber Music Festival (“singing as though the music had been written just for her,” said the Irish Times), a solo recital of Strauss, Marx, and Korngold lieder in the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal (called “a miracle” by Place de l’Opera), Carmina Burana at the Concertgebouw’s Robeco Summer Nights series, and for the world premiere of Dutch composer Jan van de Putte’s Insonia with Asko|Schönberg and Cappella Amsterdam under Reinbert de Leeuw–a performance that was broadcast live on Dutch Radio 4 from the Concertgebouw’s Zaterdagmatinee series and later released commercially on Etcetera Records.
A passionate promoter of chamber music and recital repertoire, she has co-founded several chamber groups including, most recently, Damask Vocal Quartet, which released its first album of quartets by Brahms and contemporaries, titled O schöne Nacht, in 2018 to enthusiastic reviews.
Katharine is becoming known for unusual musical imagination, intelligence, and fearlessness. She is frequently asked to jump in for high-profile performances of obscure repertoire, including Luigi Nono’s Il Canto Sospeso at the Holland Festival under Ingo Metzmacher, performances of Tavener, Gubaidulina, and Ravel at Ireland’s West Cork Chamber Music Festival (“singing as though the music had been written just for her,” said the Irish Times), a solo recital of Strauss, Marx, and Korngold lieder in the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal (called “a miracle” by Place de l’Opera), Carmina Burana at the Concertgebouw’s Robeco Summer Nights series, and for the world premiere of Dutch composer Jan van de Putte’s Insonia with Asko|Schönberg and Cappella Amsterdam under Reinbert de Leeuw–a performance that was broadcast live on Dutch Radio 4 from the Concertgebouw’s Zaterdagmatinee series and later released commercially on Etcetera Records.
A passionate promoter of chamber music and recital repertoire, she has co-founded several chamber groups including, most recently, Damask Vocal Quartet, which released its first album of quartets by Brahms and contemporaries, titled O schöne Nacht, in 2018 to enthusiastic reviews.
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May 10, 2019Sometimes, when I was an undergraduate at Harvard, I'd walk through campus on a brooding overcast day and spot the towering steeple of Memorial Church (usually quite imposing, a striking white spire against the brilliant blue of a New England sky) receding into the muted light, its sharp contours softened and made less visible by the texture of the clouds behind. For some reason, I'd feel an unexplainable pang of satisfaction whenever the steeple... -
March 11, 2019... as heimlich progresses through its shades of meaning, it eventually coincides with its opposite, unheimlich, which the German writer Schelling defined as "the name for everything that ought to have remained ... hidden and secret, and has become visible." ... In the annals of etymology, where heimlich and unheimlich reveal themselves as one and the same, we find the secret to this very particular kind of anxiety, Freud tells us,... -
January 23, 2019My year of Konstanze has ended. I'm sure I'll revisit the role, but saying goodbye to her now, and to this unforgettable team and production, was so hard. I have spilled so much (virtual) ink here talking about the process, so I won't do that any more; I'll just leave some images here of one of the most absorbing, beautiful, challenging projects I've ever done, with thanks and kisses to everyone involved (including many...
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