Robin Johannsen

Soprano Robin Johannsen moved to Europe early in her career and worked there with many of the top conductors who focus on Baroque opera. She is especially closely associated with René Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchester. Johannsen is a native of Philadelphia. She earned a B.A. degree at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and an M.A. at the University of Cincinnati, but her education was not marked by the long sequence of post-graduate studies and master classes typical of the operatic top ranks; one conductor has said that this worked to her advantage. Instead, after a few U.S. engagements, she won the Alberto Vilar Scholarship of the American Berlin Opera Foundation in 2002 and headed for Germany, where she has spent much of her career. She was quickly accepted as a permanent member of the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and began to attract wider attention. She was invited by conductor Christian Thielemann to perform at the Bayreuth Festival, where she appeared as the Young Shepherd in Wagner's Tannhäuser and then, for five seasons, as the Forest Bird in Siegfried. From 2005 to 2007, she had repeating engagements with the Leipzig Opera for leading soprano roles. After making her debut on a 2006 recording of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, she was heard three years later on a complete cycle of Wagner's Ring operas conducted by Thielemann. Since her college days, Johannsen had been urged to try applying her agile voice to Baroque opera, and with the 2007-2008 season, she launched a freelance career oriented in that direction. She quickly found success in the field, and after several parts on Baroque opera recordings, she made her solo recording debut in 2014 on the Harmonia Mundi label with the recital Caldara: In dolce amore, backed by the Academia Montis Regalis under conductor Alessandro De Marchi. De Marchi was one of her early supporters, and she has also been in demand under such conductors as Marin Alsop, Teodor Currentzis, and Ottavio Dantone, as well as with Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchester. Johannsen has appeared at such major houses as the Theater an der Wien, Oper Frankfurt, and repeatedly at the Komische Oper Berlin. She often appears with leading early music groups such as the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and Belgium's B’Rock. Johannsen has sometimes returned to her native U.S., appearing with the Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras. She has continued to record for Harmonia Mundi, moving in 2020 to PentaTone Classics for a recording of Telemann's rarely heard opera Miriways with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. In 2022, Johannsen was heard on Harmonia Mundi in Jacobs' successful and unorthodox recording of Bach's Mass in B minor, BWV 232, with the Freiburger Barockorchester.
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