To celebrate and spotlight some of the field’s top emerging singers, OPERA America asked company leaders to nominate the artists who have caught their ears and eyes.

Kathleen O’Mara considered being a teacher before deciding to become an opera singer, and her vocal career has been largely textbook ever since.

The soprano grew up near Philadelphia in a musical family. Her parents insisted that the children learn music, “and I thought, surely singing is the easiest thing I could do,” she says, laughing. After join­ing the Pennsylvania Girls Choir, which partnered with Opera Philadelphia at times, O’Mara recalls singing in the choir during a production of L’enfant et les sor­tilèges, a double bill with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, sparking a deep love for the Ital­ian composer and lyric singing.

College was Westminster Choir College in Princeton, and grad school was The Juilliard School in New York City. Apprentice­ship programs came next, at Palm Beach Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and then LA Opera. “Katie has an excep­tional voice and has taken the profession by storm,” says Patricia Racette, artis­tic director at OTSL. “Her success has been tremendous and clearly inevitable!”

In 2025, O’Mara sang three roles at the Metropolitan Opera, includ­ing a role debut as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This year, she has contin­ued to develop her career on both sides of the Atlantic, with performances at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Teatro alla Scala and a recital in Prague. She will debut at the Santa Fe Opera in 2027.

“She has had a remarkable trajectory and is one of the kindest, most humble artists I have ever encountered,” says Paul Hopper, senior director of artis­tic planning at LA Opera, noting that O’Mara will open the company’s 2026–2027 season as Micaëla in Carmen.

O’Mara, a graduate of LA Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program, recently received the com­pany’s Eva and Marc Stern Artist Award, adding to a list of accolades that includes First Place at both Operalia and the Queen Sonja Competition.

In the Wings is underwritten by generous support from Laurie E. Nelson Randlett, trustee of the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.