Sarah Traubel

Soprano Sarah Traubel specializes in Mozart but has also sung contemporary opera and a wide variety of concert works. She has made several recordings for the Aparte label. Traubel was born on July 12, 1986, in Leimen, Germany, near Mannheim and Heidelberg. Her father was a blacksmith. She is the great-niece of opera singer Helen Traubel and is also related to conductor Günter Wand, whose recordings of Bruckner she grew up hearing. At age 12, she attended a music open house at her school and was mistakenly placed in an opera classroom instead of the winds demonstration she had requested. She took to singing immediately and, at 16, enrolled in classes at a conservatory in Mannheim. Traubel attended Berlin's University of the Arts and transferred to the Salzburg Mozarteum, from which she graduated with honors. She went on for a master's degree at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Traubel's principal teacher in Salzburg was Barbara Bonney, whom she cites as a major influence; she has also studied with Angelika Kirchschlager, Julie Kaufmann, and Francisco Araiza. After finishing her studies, Traubel became a member of the opera studio at the Zurich Opera House. She had her first lead performance when she filled in for an ailing singer as Konstanze in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail; she sang the first act while another soprano was flown in, and she acted in the third act while the other performer sang from the wings. Traubel went on to sing several more lead roles at the Zurich Opera, including the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (a role that became one of her specialties), Titania in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Angel in Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina. She has sung several roles at the Salzburg Festival and has appeared at the Theater Freiburg and the Staatstheater Wiesbaden. Traubel is in demand as a concert performer, having appeared in Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G major with the Mannheim Philharmonic, in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor ("Choral") with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, and in Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with countertenor Andreas Scholl, among other works. Traubel is also active as a lieder singer and made her recording debut in 2022 on the Aparte label, backed by pianist Helmut Deutsch on the album In meinem Lied: Mahler, Liszt, Korngold, Strauss. She returned in 2023 with Scholl in the chamber vocal recital De Profundis.
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