L A U R A B O H N
s o p r a n o
". . . an amazing blend of vocal splendor and physical virtuosity" (San Francisco Chronicle)
The Witch in Hans en Griet
Lullaby, Studio Minailo, O. Festival, 2023
American born soprano Laura Bohn's performances have been called "a brilliant tour de force triumph" and "the tragic classicism and intense, focused range of a Callas playing Medea" (Gramophone).
Laura has been heard as a soloist with the LA Philharmonic, The Industry (LA), The Mostly Mozart Orchestra (NY) , Het Residentie Orkest (Netherlands), I Solisti del Vento (Belgium), Operadagen Rotterdam, Syracuse Opera (NY), West Edge Opera (CA), Festival Opera (CA), Dallas Opera (TX), The Center for Contemporary Opera (NY), The Millennium Jazz Orchestra (NL), the Grand Harmonie Orchestra (MA), Toneelmakerij and Silbersee Opera (NL). Ms. Bohn has been featured on such stages as Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall , the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, Konzerthaus Berlin, National Sawdust in New York, Het Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam.
Laura will be stepping in to sing the title role of the Duchess in Powder her Face with the Nederlandse Reisopera in January and February of 2024. The new production will tour major theaters in the Netherlands including Amsterdam's Carré. Other current projects for Laura include Lullaby a one-woman opera written for her by composer Kamala Sankaram and playwright Guillermo Calderón. The tour-de-force performance received it's world premiere in May 2023 at the O. Festival for Opera. Music. Theater (former Operadagen Rotterdam) and was heralded as '' an impressive drama . . . virtuosically sung" (theaterkrant.nl). In the coming seasons Lullaby will tour internationally including the Boekmanzaal of De Nationale Opera of the Netherlands, Muziekfestival ZOOM! and the historic Theater Vrijthof.
As a result of Lullaby's success Laura has been invited, together with the composer and director, to create a new work under the auspices of the Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ production wing and the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam. This project is in development and will premiere in 2025 - so stay tuned!
Upcoming season engagements include Marcel Moore in the world premiere of L'autre Moi (Recio/Fleischmann) which will workshop at Seattle Opera in the spring of ’24 and premiere at Oakland's West Edge Opera in ’25. The soprano will perform Anne LeBaron's solo tour de force Sucktion; A Cyborgopera at Open Gate Theater in Los Angeles and Andriessen's M is for Man, Music, Mozart with the Belgian wind orchestra I Solisti in major Dutch concert halls.
Laura will be part of developing and premiering Zuam! an immersive location based opera ritual for four singers, deaf dancer, electronics and video with The Futurists . Zuam! will premiere in May ’24 at the O. Festival, tour to Oerol and on in '24-'25 to major festivals in Poland, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Career highlights include the title role in Adés' Powder her Face, in which "her powerfully sung Duchess" "nimbly aged half a century" (Opera News, WSJ), and Bernstein's MASS, singing and dancing at Lincoln Center with the Mostly Mozart Orchestra under the baton of Louis Langrée and with Gustavo Dudamel at the LA Philharmonic. Other notable performances include The Industry's Hopscotch opera in which she sang a mad scene by Ellen Reid in over 250 performances while in a limousine driving around downtown L.A., and as Nerone in MonteverdISH, a hip-hop adaptation of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, where "she was literally a bridge between the two worlds of opera and hiphop . . " (Theater.nl) touring the Netherlands and Belgium.
Recent season highlights include the Witch in a radical urban re-imagining of Hansel and Gretel with Silbersee Opera and Toneel Makerij on a Dutch national tour. She joined the Carpe Diem String Quartet on tour in Amsterdam, Siena, Italy, and Colorado, and sang Anne LeBaron’s rollicking tour-de-force DISH in LA with the Beyond Opera Collective.
Role highlights for the soprano include the Governess in The Turn of the Screw at West Edge Opera and Dallas Opera (cover), Anna I in Weill's Seven Deadly Sins at Festival Opera, and Marzelline in Beethoven's Fidelio at Princeton University with the Grand Harmonie Orchestra. In 2018-19 she headlined The Bernstein Celebration Tour with the Millennium Jazz Orchestra in major Dutch theaters, sang Marinus (cover) in Michel van der Aa’s Sunken Garden at the Dallas Opera, Mozart arias in On Behalf of a Madman with the Grand Harmonie Orchestra in Boston and toured the Netherlands with Silbersee Opera in as the villainess in Lev. In 2017 Laura sang the role of Bellini's Norma in Before I Die with I Solisti di Vento and Kameroperahuis on tour in the Netherlands and Belgium and was heard as Elle in La Voix Humaine at National Sawdust in NYC and in the Netherlands.
Laura will have her opera-film debut in She Who is Alive by San Francisco based composer Erling Wold playing scientist and espionage ring leader Dr. Maria Stryker, filming in 2023.
Find the teaser trailer of the film here.
The villainous Juf in Lev (Silbersee Opera, 2019)
Other recent career highlights include Ino in Händel's Semele under the baton of Richard Egarr with Het Residentie Orkest, and originating the role of JFK's mistress Mary Pinchot Meyer in LSD; the Opera at REDCAT in LA. She was a singing and dancing Queen of the Night in DJ Moz’art with Silbersee Opera, a pastiche dance-opera celebrating the life and works of the composer which played over 40 performances in major theaters throughout northern Europe to great critical acclaim.
Laura is a champion of living composers and has premiered major works by Anne LeBaron, Erling Wold, Ellen Reid, Wouter Snoei, Virko Baley, Clark Suprynowicz and Forrest Pierce. The soprano was a young artist at the Teatro Real (Royal Opera of Spain) in Madrid (‘09-’10), Syracuse Opera in New York (’08) and received the Luciano Pavarotti Memorial Scholarship to attend the International Vocal Arts Institute in TelAviv, Israel.
A native of Seattle, 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 Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a BFA in Vocal Performance from the California Institute of the Arts. Laura is on the voice faculty at ArtEZ Conservatory of the Arts, Arnhem, and the Re:Master Opera program at the Sandburg Institute Amsterdam. She divides her time between the U.S. and Europe, based in Amsterdam with her jazz drummer husband and son.