Kara Shay Thomson, soprano

• Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana)

Ms. Thomson returns to Sarasota Opera for her after her spectacular debut in 2009 as Floria Tosca, a role that she has also performed with Central City Opera and Opera North. Career highlights include the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro with Toledo Opera, Utah Festival Opera, and Pensacola Opera; Musetta in La bohème and the Daughter in Michael Torke’s Strawberry Fields (touring production) with Glimmerglass Opera; the title role in Madama Butterfly and Mimì in La bohème with Colorado's Emerald City Opera; Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw and Fortuna in Monteverdi's Il coronazione di Poppea with Chicago Opera Theater; First Lady in The Magic Flute with Opera Festival of New Jersey; Micaëla in a fully-staged production of Carmen with the Amherst Symphony; Marietta in Die Tote Stadt with Washington D.C.’s Summer Opera Theatre Company; Violetta in La traviata at Wisconsin's Fox Cities Performing Arts Center; the title role in Regina with the Bronx Opera; Adina in L'elisir d’amore with Dicapo Opera Theatre; Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Opera Domani; Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus with Boston's Commonwealth Opera and Arminda in Mozart's La finta giardiniera at Amherst College.

Concert highlights have included a Wagner Concert with the Wagner Society of Washington D.C.; Violetta in La traviata with the Sioux City Symphony; the title role in Iris with Teatro Grattacielo; a staged interpretation of Schubert's Die Winterreise with the Jaques Thibaud Trio; a Carnegie Hall debut in Bach's Magnificat with the Manhattan Philharmonic; a Lincoln Center debut in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall; Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder with the Amherst Symphony; both the Brahms Requiem and Carmina Burana with the Lynchburg Symphony and the Mozart Requiem with Albany Pro Musica.