Canadian lirico-spinto soprano Mikayla Sager is drawn to the rich, multifaceted characters of Italian repertoire. Following her recent concert performance with San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Chronicle declared her “an extraordinarily gifted young soprano… Sager delivered Desdemona’s arias with a combination of intensity and hushed majesty.”
As an Adler Fellow, Sager was seen in San Francisco Opera’s centennial season, appearing as Der Hüter der Schwelle des Tempels in Die Frau ohne Schatten conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles, where Opera Canada noted that Sager “demands attention…[and] her rich soprano proved arresting;” Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with Maestra Eun Sun Kim, Image No. 1 in Gabriela Lena Frank’s El último sueño de Frida y Diego with Maestro Roberto Kalb, Sister Felicité in Dialogues des Carmélites with Maestra Eun Sun Kim, and covering both Violetta in La Traviata (Mo. Kim) and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Maestro Bertrand de Billy.
Throughout the Bay Area, she brought her portrayal of Mimì to performances of San Francisco Opera’s La Bohème and the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra for a concert at the Mondavi Center. During the 2023/2024 season, Sager was heard as Inez in Il Trovatore with San Francisco Opera and Maestra Kim, Giannetta in L’Elisir d’amore with Maestro Ramon Tebar, covered Eliza in Rhiannon Giddens’s Omar, and sang excerpts as Leonora from Il Trovatore and Anna Bolena in the “Future is Now” concert with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra (Mo. Ramon Tebar). The fall of 2024 brought Sager back to California, singing Mimì in La Bohème at Opera San Jose with Maestro Joseph Marcheso.
Recent concert performances include Poulenc’s Stabat Mater with Stanford Live, Verdi’s Requiem with Queens College Choral Society, and Beethoven’s Ah, perfido! with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Upcoming performances include reprising Violetta in La Traviata, Nedda in I Pagliacci, and Verdi’s Requiem.
As the 2022 Maria Manetti-Shrem Prize winner, Sager appeared as Giannetta in L’Elisir d’amore under the baton of Maestra Gemma New. She has previously appeared as Violetta (La Traviata), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito), Micaëla (Carmen), and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), as well as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) and the Fox (The Cunning Little Vixen). Following her debut as Norina (Don Pasquale) with Venture Opera, Opera Canada praised her “edgy intensity… she augmented her vocal prowess with enviable acting skills.”
An alumna of Manhattan School of Music, Sager was recently a semi-finalist in the 2024 Tenor Viñas Competition, the 2022 Manetti-Shrem Prize winner at Festival Napa Valley, a winner of the 2021 Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge Foundation’s Elizabeth Connell Competition, a finalist for the Jensen Foundation Vocal Competition, a district winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, second-place winner of the Vienna International Music Competition, and a finalist in the National Opera Association’s Carolyn Bailey and Dominick Argento Competition.
In 2020, Ms. Sager was scheduled to sing La Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro as part of the Merola Opera Program and chosen as a final-round participant in the Gran Teatre del Liceu’s Tenor Viñas Competition in Barcelona, but was unable to participate due to the pandemic.
2025-2026
