Kathryn Lewek easily goes from lyric to virtuosic

THE SONGBIRD: Kathryn Lewek was born in Connecticut in 1983. She studied at the Eastman School of Music and privately with Diana Soviero and Marilyn Horne. Lewek has sung Mozart's Queen of the Night with more than 25 opera companies in well over 350 performances -- in Munich, Berlin, Houston, Chicago, Madrid, Aix-en-Provence, Leipzig, and Copenhagen to name a few. Her first Queen at The Met was her debut in 2013, and she has sung it there over 80 times and counting, which is more than double the second place sopranos (Roberta Peters and Erika Miklosa each with 32 performances). Other roles (not at The Met) include Konstanze, Zerbinetta, Lucia, Rosina, Violetta, Handel's Ginevra, Offenbach's Eurydice, and the heroines in "Tales of Hoffmann." THE MUSIC: Mozart's short comic opera "Der Schauspieldirektor" ("The Impresario") K.486 was given in a private performance on February 7, 1786 for Joseph II at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna as part of a composition competition. A German singspiel (Mozart's work) was presented at one end of the room and an Italian opera buffa by Antonio Salieri ("Prima la musica e poi le parole" -"First the Music, then the Words"), was then shown at the other end of the room. Three public performances were given a few days later in Vienna. The two dueling diva roles were written for two of Mozart's muses: coloratura sopranos Aloysia Weber (Herz) and Caterina Cavalieri (Silberklang), both big stars in Vienna at the time. This is Herz's aria, "Da schlägt die Abschiedsstunde."