If there is one role that defines opera in the popular imagination — and the emotional extravagance and technical difficulty associated with classical singing — it is the Queen of the Night. The manipulative uber-mother in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” sings only two arias, but each is a showstopper of volcanic virtuosity and power, performed at the extremity of a soprano’s range, including a fearsome number of high Fs.
For 12 years, the Connecticut-born soprano Kathryn Lewek, 41, has dispatched those coloratura runs with consistency of tone and dramatic conviction. She has sung some 350 performances of the role in more than 30 productions. She is starring now in the English-language abridged version at the Metropolitan Opera. (She alternates with Aigul Khismatullina, making her Met debut in the role.) And when the opera returns to the Met in March, Lewek will sing in the zippy modern-dress production, directed by Simon McBurney, that has her flinging vocal thunderbolts from a wheelchair.
Lewek’s unusually long reign as Queen means there has been less room in her schedule for other roles. In past years, she has balanced “Magic Flute” runs at top houses with engagements at regional companies that allowed her to expand her dramatic range with different characters. At the Salzburg Festival this summer, she sang all four heroines in Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann.” This season also brings role debuts as Micaëla in Bizet’s “Carmen” at Nashville Opera, alongside her husband, the tenor Zach Borichevsky, as Don José; and as Puccini’s Musetta in Opera Colorado’s “La Bohème.”
And, since our interview, the Met announced that Lewek would sing Musetta in “La Bohème” in the 2026-27 season and Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in 2028. She has also been engaged to sing Queen and Pamina alternately in a “Magic Flute” run in 2026.
In an interview, Lewek spoke about being cast as Mozart’s Queen before she knew the part and about building a career around the role, which has led to some tough calls, like singing this most athletic of parts six weeks after giving birth.
How has your success as Queen of the Night affected your career?
It’s become a staple that supports my career and my family. Queen is such a lucrative role. It’s one of the most highly paid in the industry because it’s so fiendishly difficult and so few people can execute it. It also provided a lot of stability for me, because when people decide years ahead of time that they’re going to do a production of “The Magic Flute,” the first thing on their to-do list is hire a Queen. And it allows me to take other roles at lesser houses that don’t pay as much but that are roles I really want to sing.
How did you make the role of Queen of the Night your own?
I started out as a mezzo; it wasn’t even on my radar. When I made the switch to coloratura soprano at Eastman [College of Music], I was asked to sing this wildly difficult Schoenberg piece, “Herzgewächse.” It has a pianissimo high F that goes on for many bars and it seemed impossible. My teacher said “I’m going to have you go to Rita Shane, she is the resident high F expert.” I walked in and Rita said, “This is going to be a piece of cake.” She showed me: Do this, do that [she mimed a plumber fitting pieces of tubing together] — and there was the high F. It just came shooting out of me.
But I didn’t actually learn Queen until I was hired to sing it. At an audition, the casting director of Berlin’s Deutsche Oper asked me to sing one of her arias. I said, “Um, I don’t know it.” He was in disbelief.
I had just transitioned to coloratura repertoire, I was 27. I said, “It’s not that I don’t think I can sing it, I just don’t know it yet.” And they called me that night and said, “You’ve got the job, you’re moving to Berlin for a year and you’re going to sing Queen of the Night. So you’d better learn it!”
The Queen seems to dominate “The Magic Flute,” but she sings for all of 12 minutes or so. How do you bring depth to her character?
Over the years, I have found so many sides of her that I can absolutely imagine an entire opera about the Queen. I think the Simon McBurney production here at the Met really gets into the deep psyche of the Queen’s frailty. Usually, when people behave poorly, it’s because they have a lot of fear and anxiety. Confident, comfortable people don’t lash out the way the Queen does.
Many sopranos sing the Queen at an early stage in their careers and transition out when it no longer fits their voice. What accounts for your longevity?
I sing Queen intelligently. I don’t scream it. Over the years I have honed in to a place in my voice where it’s almost like computer programming, I just press the Queen button and it goes.
Even after giving birth?
I credit the Queen with bringing me back postpartum with both of my kids. The first time I was nursing my 6-week-old daughter backstage between arias — I had had a C-section and to have all the muscles of my support system slashed in half was terrifying. It was a questionable decision for my mental health, but certainly for my financial health I didn’t really feel I had a choice. And the Queen brought me back.
With your Queen in such demand, how do you add new roles to your repertory?
I now only take the role at top-tier houses in New York, Berlin, London and Paris. And when people ask me for Queen, I’ve gotten comfortable asking for things in return — some things that money can’t buy. That might be a run of Violettas, or some [Donizetti] Lucias or a Constanze [in Mozart’s “Abduction From the Seraglio”] or Gilda [in “Rigoletto”]. A lot of times it’s roles I’ve already done at regional opera houses.
For a while, my seasons were just chock-full of Queens. I had disappointing times early on where I financially felt I had to turn down other roles and take Queens. But at Salzburg, a lot of buzz was created [with “Tales of Hoffmann”], and now it’s exciting to walk into a rehearsal room and not know [everything about a role]. Whereas Queen is comfortable for me, as crazy as that sounds. It’s my security blanket.
As a rule, Queens don’t get promoted. Where do you see yourself headed in your career?
People think, “She’s singing the hardest thing and she’s doing it more than anybody else. She’s the reigning Queen.” In many people’s eyes that is the pinnacle of this kind of career. But to me it feels like I’ve just begun. Yes, I’ve mastered that one role. But I want to climb them all.
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