Winner of the RAAP/RTÉ Lyric FM Classical Breakthrough Music Bursary, Irish mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty is a graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music Dublin, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Vienna, and an alumna of the Opernstudio programme at Oper Frankfurt. Her roles at Oper Frankfurt have included Zweite Dame (Die Zauberflöte), Tebaldo (Don Carlo), Aloes (L’Etoile), Flora (La Traviata), Annina (Der Rosenkavalier), and the title role in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (2013) —a role debut which was lauded as ‘quite simply sensational’ by critics. In 2014, she created the title role of Oscar in the world premiere of Oscar und die Dame in Rosa at Theater Freiburg, described by the Stuttgarter Zeitung as a ‘young, agile, bright and round first-class Mezzo’. Her other opera repertoire includes many of the important lyric mezzo-soprano roles, such as Cherubino (2013), Ariodante (2016), Hansel (2015,2016), Dorabella (2016,2017), Sesto (2017) for companies such as Landestheater Linz, Opera Theatre Company, The Ministry of Operatic Affairs, Theater Freiburg and Theater Erfurt.

Sharon also enjoys a busy concert schedule of chamber music, lieder and oratorio with numerous ensembles and orchestras at home and abroad. Recent concert appearances have included Durufle Requiem with the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Messiah with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Great Mass in c minor at Osnabrück Cathedral and St.Matthew Passion at the Jacobikirche, Hamburg. The 2017/2018 season includes debuts in Moscow with Musica Viva, Amsterdam with the Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht, and London with The Second Violinist, as well as tours of Ireland with the Irish Baroque Orchestra. Next season will also see the DVD release of La Traviata live in Hannover with the NDR Radiophilharmonie conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson, and the CD release of Gilbert and Cellier’s The Mountebanks with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by John Andrews.