Katherine Pracht Phares

Katherine Pracht Phares, mezzo-soprano, comes to BGSU with twenty years of professional singing experience in opera, recital, and oratorio performances. She champions contemporary opera and much of her recent professional activity is in this genre. Katy is currently a student in the DMA in Contemporary Music program at BGSU.

The 2022-23 season featured several premieres for the busy mezzo. Pracht performed Madeleine in Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers with Opera on the Avalon, returned to West Edge Opera for her first Cornelia in Giulio Cesare, and workshopped two new operas, Bulrusher, and Laura Kaminsky’s February. She then debuted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Quad-City Symphony, as well as the role of Mary Johnson in Virginia Opera’s production of Fellow Travelers. In October, Pracht creates the role of Helen in Kaminsky’s next world premiere opera February at Opera on the Avalon in St. John's, Newfoundland; and she looks forward to another exciting announcement coming soon! 

2021 engagements included a world premiere and cast recording as Horatio in Joseph Summer’s Hamlet at the Dohodno Zdanie Theater in Ruse, Bulgaria, and a reprisal of the title role in Kevin Puts’ opera, Elizabeth Cree with West Edge Opera. Katy also won outstanding reviews as Miss Jessel in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with IlluminArts in Miami. The 2019 season also had important role debuts: Charlotte in A Little Night Music with Madison Opera, Ottavia in L'incoronazione di Poppea with Florentine Opera, Kate Julian in Britten’s rarely heard Owen Wingrave with Little Opera Theatre of NY, Duruflé’s Requiem with the Washington Chorus, and Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges with Opera Philadelphia.

Other recent credits are Glenda (cover) in We Shall Not Be Moved with Opera Philadelphia;  Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5 for Trinity Wall Street; Lady Wang in Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber in Changsha, Beijing, and Wuhan, China; Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky with York Symphony; and her premiere as Elizabeth Cree with Chicago Opera Theater, where the Chicago Tribune said “Katherine Pracht brought a mezzo of size and quality, and confident dramatic presence, to the complicated title role.” 

Ms. Pracht appeared as Mariam in the AOP-sponsored workshop of Sheila Silver’s opera, A Thousand Splendid Suns, sang A Bernstein Marathon and Arias & Barcarolles with Steven Blier and Michael Barrett (New York Festival of Song) at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’ Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man and the world premiere of Sing! The Music Was Given at Carnegie Hall, and Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles with The Orchestra NOW at the Bard Festival under the baton of Leon Botstein. She returned to that Bard Festival in Rimsky-Korsakov’s From Homer with the American Symphony Orchestra, and as Dunyasha in The Tsar’s Bride.  Katy performed Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles with Bright Sheng and Michael Barrett for The Intimacy of Creativity 2017 Festival in Hong Kong. Her Kennedy Center debut was as Mezzo soloist in Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5 with the Washington Chorus.

Katy has performed and workshopped many roles in new works: Florence Williams in Susan Kander’s The News From Poems, Hester Prynne in Eric Sawyer's The Scarlet Professor; Eve in Julian Wachner and Cerise Jacobs’ Rev 23 for the Prototype Festival, Sharon Falconer in Elmer Gantry with Florentine Opera and Ariel in the world premiere of Joseph Summer’s The Tempest for The Shakespeare Concerts in Boston recorded by Albany Records. In concert she sang Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the York Symphony, and Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with Grand Rapids Symphony. Pracht made her Carnegie Hall debut as Alto Soloist in Verdi's Requiem, her debut with Opera Philadelphia as Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte, twice sang Der Trommler in Der Kaiser von Atlantis for Central City Opera with the Colorado Symphony and for Chicago’s New Millennium Orchestra, sang Meg in Little Women directed by David Gately for Opera on the James, and two concerts with the Georgia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus singing John Corigliano’s Fern Hill and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky.