Praised for her “radiant, seemingly effortless singing” (The Times) with “a sense of pure joy and excitement” (OperaWire), soprano Hera Hyesang Park is celebrated not only for her exquisite voice and stagecraft, but for the profound ideas embodied in her work.
Hailing from South Korea and trained at The Juilliard School, she infuses her music with a cosmopolitan perspective that blends her Korean heritage and Western life experiences in a style she describes as “traditional but uncommon”: open to learning from both classical and modern attitudes to life and art. Her lyric coloratura voice carries both immaculate technique and a seemingly infinite variety of tonal colors, combining in a fearless and captivating stage presence. Central to her music is a powerful drive for empathy and understanding, challenging discrimination and stereotypes of all kinds. Live performance and recordings represent, for Ms. Park, acts of self- discovery and a means of heartfelt, emotionally honest connection with others.
In the 2024-2025 season, Ms. Park will be featured in a variety of operatic roles, concert performances and recitals, including her highly anticipated debuts with the LA Philharmonic in a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, led by Gustavo Dudamel; with Boston Baroque in Haydn’s The Creation, led by Martin Pearlman; as Despina in Così fan tutte at Edinburgh’s International Festival with Maxim Emelyanychev; and her return to San Diego Symphony with Raphael Payare in a Mozart gala celebration. In other engagements, she performs with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, led by Sascha Goetzel; the Wiener Symphoniker for Mozart and Mahler, conducted by Petr Popelka; the Solti gala concert at the Hungarian State Opera, led by János Kovács; and a concert with the Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine, led by Sora Elisabeth Lee. Later in the season, she takes on the role of Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Staatsoper Hamburg, and returns to The Metropolitan Opera as Pamina in The Magic Flute. In recital, she appears in South Korea to celebrate a new Gangneung album and returns to London in recital, this time at St. John’s Smith’s Square.
In the course of her fast-rising career, Ms. Park has taken the stage at venues from The Metropolitan Opera to Glyndebourne Festival. Her opera roles have included Rosina in the Glyndebourne Festival’s 2019 production of Il barbiere di Siviglia (a performance described
by The Times in London as “phenomenal”) and Musetta in Barrie Kosky’s production
of La bohème at Komische Oper Berlin. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2017
as the First Wood Sprite in Rusalka and made successful returns as Amore in Mark Morris’s staging of Orfeo ed Euridice, Pamina in The Magic Flute and Nannetta in Falstaff. She sang the role of Violetta Valéry in the 2020 world premiere of 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, Marina Abramović’s pioneering opera project for the Bayerische Staatsoper, reprising the role at Opera de Paris in 2021. Other key roles have included Adina in Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore at Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Despina in Così fan tutte at Bayerische Staatsoper, Aldimira
in Rossini’s Sigismondo with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, and two additional roles at Glyndebourne Festival: Despina in Così fan tutte and Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro. She has also performed as a soloist in concert with the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Opera, and in a performance of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche.
