Corinne Winters primed for what she calls ‘a dream collaboration’ with CSO

For soaring American soprano Corinne Winters, her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on April 9-12 offers just about everything she could possibly want in one set of concerts. 

It’s a chance for the Paris-based singer to return to her home country and perform Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs with her favorite conductor, Jakub Hrůša, and with what she calls “one of the best orchestras in the world” — the CSO.

“To do this combination of amazing things together is a dream and something I think that I will remember long after I’m done singing,” Winters said. “Of course, I don’t want to over-hype this for myself and get nervous, but I’m thrilled. It’s a dream orchestra, a dream piece and a dream collaboration.”

Hrůša has become a regularly scheduled guest conductor with the CSO, and these April concerts are the second set of performances that the much-lauded Czech maestro will lead during the ensemble’s 2025/26 season.

Winters works with Hrůša regularly and always finds joy in making music with him. “He has an amazing combination of skill and precision, as well as intuition,” she said, “Along with the intuition comes a certain empathy and humanity, which I just think we need in the world today in general and which we really need in music.”

Strauss was 84 when he wrote Four Last Songs in 1948, a year before his death. The title for the set was provided by the composer’s friend Ernst Roth, chief editor at Boosey & Hawkes, which published it in 1950; the order in which the songs are typically performed is: “Frühling (Spring),” “September,” “Beim Schlafengehen (When Falling Asleep)” and “Im Abendrot (At Sunset).”

“When one hears Four Last Songs, they are incredibly moving, but you don’t leave the concert hall feeling heavy,“ Winters said. ”In fact, they lighten us, because they are so radiant. They are so truthful, and there’s hope in there.”

Winters first performed the set in 2023 during three performances with Hrůša and the Bamberg (Germany) Symphony, where he serves as a chief conductor, including a program at Vienna’s famed Musikverein. Returning to them three years later, she feels an even deeper connection. “They’re just heavenly works,” she said. “There are other equally beautiful pieces, but I don’t think anything is more beautiful than these four songs.”

The CSO program deals with the existential subject of death, one that has consumed composers and other creators for centuries. In addition to Four Last Songs, the program features Leoš Janáček’s overture to his 1928 opera, From the House of the Dead, Sergei Rachmaninov’s The Isle of the Dead and an orchestral version of Liebestod (Love-Death) from Richard Wagner’s celebrated 1857-59 music drama, Tristan und Isolde.

Winters’ realization that she might have voice suitable for opera came through what the Frederick, Maryland, native called an “accidental discovery.” “Like most typical suburban Americans,” she said, “I didn’t grow up with classical music. My parents knew nothing about it. They weren’t against, but we didn’t have classical music in the home.”

Starting in elementary school, however, she enjoyed singing, so with the encouragement of her parents, she took part in youth choirs. “I loved it and did well in it,” she said. She considered minoring in music when she went to college, and decided during her senior year in high school that it might not be a bad idea to take a voice lesson or two if she were to do that.

“I was shocked,” Winters said. “My voice teacher said to me immediately, ‘You have an operatic voice. You should pursue voice.’ I just said, ‘I don’t know anything about opera,’ and I assumed that I didn’t like it simply out of ignorance — not knowing it.”

She attended Towson University in Maryland for her undergraduate studies and intended to major in psychology and music, but she ended up devoting herself entirely to music. “So that voice lesson in my last year of high school was the spark,” she said, “but it was a long time after that before I thought I would really have a career in opera or in classical music at all. But that started the journey.”

After earning a master’s degree at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, she became a resident artist at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, a training program for up to four years that prepares gifted young singers for a professional career and provides them with small stipends for living expenses. “I went there when I was 24,” she said. “I left when I was 28, and when I left, I had a manager and I had jobs lined up.”

After appearing mostly with a few regional opera companies in the United States, Winter got her first big break in 2013 when she starred as Violetta in a production of La Traviata with the English National Opera and was nominated for best newcomer at the 2014 International Opera Awards. “The exposure I got from doing a title role in a major world city in Europe completely changed my career,” she said.

After that experience, she moved to London, remaining there just before Great Britain withdrew from the European Union at the beginning of 2020, which meant that she could no longer easily work across the rest of the Europe. She briefly moved back to the United States, where she remained during the pandemic, and then settled in France after performing at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2024.

“I realized after doing 12 performances of La Traviata in London that Europe is really where opera is thriving, not just on the highest scale but even at the regional level,” Winters said. “They are doing interesting, edgy productions and many performances and hiring a variety of different singers. I thought, ‘I really need to be there, because that’s where the bulk of the interesting work is and I will have a better shot of making it.’ ”

In August 2022, Winters gained even more attention when she made her debut at the prestigious Salzburg Festival, premiering in the title role in a production of Leoš Janáček’s opera, Káťa Kabanová, directed by Barrie Kosky and conducted by Hrůša. The production gained international acclaim, including an International Classical Music Award for best opera DVD and a Gramophone Award for best opera recording. “That was probably the biggest success of my career to date and launched me into another level,” she said.

Since then the soprano has gone to make a series of debuts with major companies since, including the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and Vienna State Opera, and returned to the New York’s Metropolitan Opera in May 2025 with her first major role there in La Bohème. “With her finely crafted, sensitively sung, captivating Mimi, she gave a star-making performance,” wrote music critic Rick Perdian in the New York Classical Review.

“This season has been busiest one yet,” Winters said. “That is wonderful, and I feel very blessed. But on the other hand, this is what we call a feast or famine career. It’s very difficult to find the middle ground.”

But in 2026/27, she hopes to find at least some sense of balance. She has scheduled fewer opera productions and added more duo recitals and orchestra performances, which require less rehearsal and should allow her some much-needed down time.

As she has pursued her career, Winters has been fortunate to find the right people at the right time to help propel her forward. “If nine out of 10 people said no,” she said, “one person said yes every time I needed it to happen. And that’s a combination of luck, hard work, talent, resilience and just putting myself out there over and over again.”