Soprano Katherine Henly returns to SFSO for Handel’s Messiah Dec. 6 & 7, 2025.

Praised worldwide for her captivating and affecting portrayals in genres ranging from opera to musical theater, jazz, and pop, American soprano Katherine Henly has performed with Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, The Muscat Royal Opera House, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Charlottesville Opera, Virginia Opera, The New York Musical Theatre Festival, The New York International Fringe Festival, and The O’Neill National Music Theater Conference. For her eleventh-hour debut with Oper Köln in Street Scene, Resmusica raved “Finally, in Sam Kaplan and Rose Maurrant, we discover two of the most promising American singers… Radiant physically and vocally, very moving also in the farewell scene, Katherine Henly, is not to be outdone in that of her beloved – a performance all the more impressive under the circumstances. The very young American soprano, passing through Cologne, had indeed replaced in the last minute a suffering colleague during several rehearsals – without having yet sung the role on stage before. The Cologne Opera thanked her with a performance that marked both her European debut and her acting debut. A career definitely to follow.”

The 2024-2025 season featured Ms. Henly’s début at The Metropolitan Opera as one of the Niñas in their new production of Golijov/Hwang’s Ainadamar. She also returned to South Florida Symphony as soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem, return to Minnesota Opera as Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and appear as a featured soloist in The Twisted World of Christian De Gré Cárdenas at 54 Below. 

In the 2023-2024 season, Ms. Henly brought her extraordinary dramatic prowess to the fore in creating the lead role of the Woman in Daniel Schlosberg’s world premiere adaptation of Amanda Quaid’s The Extinctionist with New York’s innovative Heartbeat Opera. Eric Myers for OPERA by Opera News raved, “The Woman is the central character and is on stage non-stop. Katherine Henly gave a tour-de-force performance in the role, stretching her essentially lyric soprano to thrillingly dramatic extremes, and making very pointed use of her impressive upper register.” She also joined Operafest Røykenvik for an arias concert, South Florida Symphony for Handel’s Messiah, MidAmerica Productions for her Carnegie Hall début in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, and Minnesota Opera to cover Adina in L’elisir d’amore. In the preceding season, she sang Clorinda in Opera Maine’s production of La Cenerentola to great acclaim and was seen in concert with Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra and the Creede Musical Arts Collective. 

Recent seasons saw her début the role of Musetta in Peter Rothstein’s critically acclaimed production of La bohème with Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis, her return to Charlottesville Opera as Valencienne in The Merry Widow, her début as Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola conducted by Gavriel Heine for the Northern Lights Music Festival, and her performance as a soloist in Preludes: Lyrics & Lyricists, a five-part online series filmed on the historic stage of the 92nd Street Y. Additional recent performances include the world premiere of Maria Thompson Corley’s The Sky Where You Are commissioned by An Opera Theatre and streaming online as a part of Decameron Opera Coalition’s Tales From A Safe Distance; and a soloist for Glad Jul, a holiday concert produced by Motarbeider, the Støttet av Kulturrådet Norsk kulturfond, and the Nord-Odal kommune, filmed in the historic Sand kirke in Nord-Odal, Norway. She made her off-Broadway début as Elsa in Sheldon Harnick’s musical Dragons at The York Theatre Company and can be heard on the studio recording with Tony Award-winner Michael Cerveris.  

Ms. Henly has completed Young Artist residencies with Utah Festival Opera, Charlottesville Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival. She is a graduate of Ithaca College (B.M.) and Brigham Young University (M.M.).