Lauded as “smart singer” with a “gorgeous, clear lyric soprano voice” (Operaworld.com), Canadian-American soprano Katherine Giaquinto is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and began her performing career as a professional actress in Canadian film and television. Her background as a film actress has made her a favorite among directors and conductors for impassioned performances of Mozart and Puccini, and she is also in demand as a new music specialist.

Katherine recently made a splash with LA Opera when she stepped in with less than two-weeks notice for the role of Rosina in Paisiello’s Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Figaro Unbound series under the baton of Maestro James Conlon. She made her LA Opera debut earlier in 2015 in Tony Award-winning director Darko Tresnjak’s raved production of The Ghosts of Versailles. In 2014, Katherine sang Stella in a critically-acclaimed production of Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire with Union Avenue Opera in St. Louis. Previous roles also include the Prima Donna in Donizetti’s Viva la mamma, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Musetta in La Bohème and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, all with Pacific Opera Project. Other previous roles include Alice in Falstaff – both at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) in 2009 and at UCLA in 2008; Tytania in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Pamina in Die Zauberflöte; the title role in The Merry Widow; and, in 2010, a return to her background as a professional swordfighter as Clorinda in Monterverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda at CCM. In addition to standard operatic repertoire, Katherine has become a go-to singer in the contemporary music scene, and she continues to cultivate relationships with living composers. In early 2016 she sang the west coast premier of Circular 14, a new oratorio on the life of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul whose actions during WWII saved the lives of thousands of Jewish refugees.

Katherine received her Master of Music degree from CCM, and her Bachelor of Arts in Music from UCLA.