(Credit: Vincent Pontet/Paris Opera)

This week the Paris Opera opened its 2024-25 season with Verdi’s final work. The production featured some of the greatest interpreters of the opera as well as an array of singers new to the work. Among them was Olivia Boen who was making a double debut.

The American soprano not only made her role debut as Alice Ford, but she was also making her Paris Opera debut, raising her profile as one of the world’s rising stars. Additionally, this will be one of her most important leading roles in a major opera company.

Over the past years, Boen has been a member of the Opernstudio at the Staatsoper Hamburg where she has already performed Gretel in Humperdink’s “Hänsel und Gretel,” Musetta in Puccini’s “La bohème,” Xenia in Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” and Inez in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore.”

The soprano has already performed with the Verbier Festival, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, London Song Festival, and Opera Holland Park.

For those not in Paris to discover the rising star, Boen will make three role debuts in Hamburg including Servilla in Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito,” Pamina in Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte,” and Sifare in Mozart’s “Mitridate, re di Ponto” and will make her Philharmonie de Paris debut.

Recordings 

For those who want to listen to Boen’s voice, here she is as Nedda in “Pagliacci” and Fiordiligi in “Cosi fan tutte.”