BIOGRAPHY
Canadian soprano Sarah Dufresne has been praised for her “style and elegance” (Bachtrack) and for the “richness of tone, some angelic high notes and admirable control” (The Arts Desk).
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Highlights of her 2025/26 season include her Vancouver Opera debut as Gilda in Rigoletto, her role debut as the Woodbird in Siegfried at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and her house debut at Teatro alla Scala as Frasquita in Carmen. On the concert stage, she will make her debut with Les Violons du Roy, sing the Fauré Requiem with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, return to the London Symphony Orchestra to perform Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica at the BBC Proms, and make her debut at the Tiroler Festspiele as Lisa in Bellini’s La sonnambula.
In the 2024/25 season, she appeared as Ophélie in Thomas’s Hamlet with Opéra de Montréal, Gilda in Rigoletto with Pacific Opera Victoria, and Semele in Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae with the Bayerische Staatsoper. She also performed Orff’s Carmina Burana at Festival de Lanaudière with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, all to great critical acclaim. This season also marked the release of her debut album, Quatre chansons de jeunesse (Debussy), and her featured performances on Malcolm Martineau’s The Complete Songs of Ravel.
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The 2023/2024 season included concert debuts with both the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Toledo Symphony, as well as in both Cadogan and Wigmore Halls as an associate artist of The Mozartists. She finished her two-year residency with Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Program, appearing on stage at Covent Garden in Bizet’s Carmen (Frasquita), Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore (Giannetta), and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (Dew Fairy), all to much critical acclaim. To close out her season, she appeared as the High Priestess in Verdi’s Aida under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Orchestre Métropolitain at the Festival de Lanaudière.
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Sarah debuted on the stage of Covent Garden as Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia), Der Hirt (Tannhäuser), Voce dal Cielo (Don Carlo), Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro), and Tusnelda (Arminio). She had the great pleasure of working under the batons of Joana Mallwitz, Bertrand de Billy, Maxim Emelyanychev, and Sebastian Weigle, and the direction of Sir David McVicar, Oliver Mears, and Tim Albery. Additonally, the summer of 2023 saw Sarah’s debut with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal for Orff’s Carmina Burana with Rafael Payare.
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From 2020-2022 Sarah was a member of l’Atelier lyrique at l’Opéra de Montréal. Sarah appeared on the mainstage at Place des Arts as Nora in Opéra de Montréal’s season opening production of Vaughn-William’s Riders to the Sea. In June of 2022, Sarah placed second in the Aria Division of the prestigious Concours Musical International de Montréal, garnering praise for her “tremendous dramatic presence,” and “astonishing clarity and vocal dexterity” [Opera Canada].
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Other repertoire includes Tytania (Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Mrs. Fiorentino (Kurt Weill’s Street Scene), Galatea (Handel’s Acis and Galatea), and Servilia in (Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito). Recently, in collaboration with Against the Grain Theater and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Sarah premiered the role of Rebecca Marshall in their production of Nicole Lizée’s No One’s Safe, a conceptual and immersive murder mystery opera.
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