Taylor Haines

American soprano Taylor Haines performs repertoire from Mozart and Verdi to Strauss, Schoenberg and contemporary opera. Her 2026/27 engagements include Desdemona in Otello and Lady Clarence in Saint-Saëns’s Henry VIII at Staatstheater Meiningen, where she holds a part-time ensemble contract, and the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte at Oldenburgisches Staatstheater. Her Oldenburg work also encompasses Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Curra in La forza del destino, the Female Convict in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music.

Recent stage roles include Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito at Theater Lüneburg and the Woman in Schoenberg’s Erwartung. Her other roles include Fiordiligi, the Countess, Musetta and the Marschallin, together with Older Alyce in Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied. In the United States, she made her house and role debut as Alice Ford in Falstaff with West Bay Opera in 2019 and sang Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus with Opera San José that year.

On the concert stage, Ms. Haines made her MDR-Sinfonieorchester debut in Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder at the Leipzig Wagner Festwoche in 2026. The same year, she received a Berenberg Bank Foundation scholarship and appeared at the Elbphilharmonie. As a Bayreuth scholarship recipient, she was selected for the scholarship holders’ concert. Her recital work at the NorCal Music Festival includes Verdi and verismo arias and songs by Strauss and Wagner.

Her earlier work in North America and Europe includes engagements with Respiro Opera, Musik Trossingen and Lingua e Canto. She sang Marcellina in a touring production of Le nozze di Figaro in Karlsruhe, Trossingen, Heidelberg and Mannheim during a year of study in Germany. Her musical-theatre background includes Laurie in Oklahoma!, Marian in The Music Man and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Through benefit concerts, she supports the Freedom from Fistula Foundation.

Ms. Haines’s distinctions include first prize at the Maria Amadini Competition and second prizes at the Hans Staud, Salvatore Licitra and Absalom Foundation Mozart competitions. She received second prize at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Western Regional Auditions in Los Angeles in 2019. She has also received scholarships from the Joan and David Traitel and Kastanis Voice foundations.

Ms. Haines completed her Konzertexamen in Hamburg in 2025, following a master’s degree with Carolyn James. She also holds a Master of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Deborah Voigt, and a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Sacramento State University. Further training took her to Milan’s Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, the Renata Scotto Opera Program, Berlin Opera Academy and Music Academy of the West.