Soprano Kathleen O’Mara was recently awarded 1st Prize at the 2025 Queen Sonja Singing Competition and 1st Prize and the Birgit Nilsson Prize at the 2024 Operalia Competition. She is a graduate of LA Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program and is a 2024 recipient of the prestigious Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation.
In the summer of 2026, she will debut at the Edinburgh International Festival in Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied conducted by Donald Runnicles and with the Oslo Philharmonic in their annual outdoor concert at The Palace Square conducted by Giedrė Šlekytė. Kathleen will also appear in recital with the Oslo Chamber Music Festival and participate in the Académie du Festival d’Aix.
Kathleen’s 26/27 season includes two returns to LA Opera. First, she appears in the new production of Carmen (Micaëla) directed by Thaddeus Strassberger and conducted by their new music director Domingo Hindoyan and after, she makes her role debut in Turandot (Liù). Other highlights of the season include her house and role debut at The Dallas Opera in Lohengrin (Elsa). On the concert stage, Kathleen debuts with The Barcelona Symphony in Act I of Die Walküre conducted by Ludovic Morlot and makes her Carnegie Hall recital debut presented by The Julliard School.
In the 25/26 season, Kathleen returned to The Metropolitan Opera for Don Giovanni (Donna Anna) under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Magic Flute (First Lady). She also returned to Teatro alla Scala for Die Walküre (Helmwige) and made debuts at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Elektra (Fünfte Magd) and Seattle Opera in Carmen (Micaëla).
In the 2024-2025 season, Kathleen made her debuts at Teatro alla Scala in Die Walküre (Helmwige), The Metropolitan Opera in Il barbiere di Siviglia (Berta), and San Diego Opera in La bohème (Mimì). She was also seen on the concert stage with the LA Philharmonic in excerpts from Carmen conducted by Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl.
She made her LA Opera debut in the fall of 2023 in Il barbiere di Siviglia (Berta) and was also seen in Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (Erste Zofe) conducted by James Conlon. In the summer of 2024, she was a Gaddes Festival Artist with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, where she made her OTSL debut in Galileo Galilei (Duchess Christina) by Philip Glass.
Kathleen holds a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music degree from Westminster Choir College. She is a native of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.
2026-2027


