Recently described by Opera News as "radiant," "poetically compelling," "delectably stylish" and "technically refined," soprano Talya Lieberman returned to Komische Oper Berlin for the 2021/2022 season after a stint at the Luzerner Theater in Lucerne, Switzerland in 2020/2021, singing Despina in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte and Fuchs in Janáček's Das schlaue Füchslein. Prior to that she spent four seasons with Komische Oper Berlin, where she regularly performed operatic, operetta, and musical theater repertoire. As a member of the Opernstudio from 2016-2018, she was seen in over 120 performances in 2 seasons, including 6 premieres and performing on tour in Spain, Hungary, China, South Korea, and Japan. She continued at KOB for the 2018/2019 season, reprising her roles in Fiddler on the Roof, Die Perlen der Cleopatra, L’enfant et les Sortilèges, and Die Zauberflöte (on tour in Australia, New Zealand, and New York City), as well as adding the role of Dorothy in a critically acclaimed production of Pierangelo Valtinoni's new operatic version of The Wizard of Oz at both Komische Oper and Theater Erfurt. Among other highlights from last year's season are the lead role in a premiere of Paul Abraham's operetta Märchen im Grand Hotel, and Zerlina in Herbert Fritsch's production of Don Giovanni.
In the summer of 2016 she made her Cincinnati Opera debut in the world premiere of Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers (including original cast live recording), after which she participated in Edith Wiens’ Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Germany. The Spring prior, she made her Opera Columbus debut as Musetta in La Bohème and performed the title role in Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she graduated with an Artist Diploma in May 2016. She had returned to Cincinnati after completing the summer of 2015 as a Filene Young Artist with Wolf Trap Opera, where her ability to “make a point with the merest flick of a finger” (Washington Post) shined in a highly lauded run as Susanna in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. She also appeared in concert with Steven Blier at Wolf Trap in a program celebrating the Broadway legacy of the Rodgers family (The Rodgers Family - A Century of Musicals).
In Spring 2015 she made her recital debut with the San Francisco Opera Center as part of their Schwabacher Debut Recital series. Praised by judges for her intense stage presence, risk-taking, superb vocalism, and outstanding dramatic performances, she was a 2-time winner in the 2015 and 2016 crossover opera/musical theater Lotte Lenya Competition (Kurt Weill Foundation).
2014 highlights included performing Gretel in concert with the Cincinnati Symphony and in full production at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, as well as winning first prize in the Irma M. Cooper Vocal Competition (Opera Columbus). In the summer of 2014 she sang the title role in Handel’s Semele as part of the Schwabacher Concert Series with the Merola Opera Program in a performance that “made a particularly deep impression… [Lieberman’s] depiction of Semele’s vanity under the spell of Juno’s magic mirror involved the rapid-fire delivery of one comic turn after another, all delightfully coupled with her command of coloratura fireworks” (San Francisco Examiner). In 2013, she won first prize at the Alida Vane International Voice Competition (2013) in Latvia, where she studied on a Fulbright scholarship for the 2012/2013 school year.
Talya is a convert from the orchestra pit and started singing after receiving her master’s degree in trumpet performance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts under the tutelage of Judith Saxton. She completed her B.A. at Duke University with highest distinction in linguistics (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude). She is a two-time winner of full tuition and stipend—winning the Russell-Seybold and Italo Tajo Awards, respectively—at the Opera Scholarship Competition of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Bill McGraw.
Talya lived a few lives before coming to opera full-time; she worked on sleep apnea research as a research coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, served as program coordinator for the El Sistema inspired program Play On, Philly!, and had a short stint as a singer-songwriter, publishing an album and appearing on the New York Times Freakonomics blog, as well as in a Wall Street Journal print article for her original composition about the 2008 recession. She is an avid student of somatic and movement practices and is currently in a practitioner training with Chandler Stevens at the Ecosomatics Institute. She loves reading the New Yorker, writing songs and poems, serving as editor-in-residence for friends and family, teaching anything that she is passionate about, being an aunt to seven magical children, and being a mother to one magical little boy, born in May 2022.
Talya joined the music department faculty of the Europa Universität Flensburg in a tenured position (Hauptamtlich tätig) starting in January 2023, and is very excited to support future music educators in finding their voices.
