Karen Williams is an American concert and opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

. In 1985 she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions

Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions

The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions is an annual singing competition sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera. Established in 1954, its purpose is to discover, assist, promote, and develop young opera singers. The competition is held in four stages: Districts, Regional, Semi-Final, and...

; making her stage debut at the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 later that year as Serena in George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

's Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

. She sang that role at the Met again in 1989-1990. She has also performed Serena at Symphony Hall, Springfield

Symphony Hall, Springfield

Symphony Hall is a concert venue in Springfield, Massachusetts. Constructed between 1911-1913 and originally known as "The Auditorium," Symphony Hall is renowned as much for its "perfect acoustics" as it is for its Greek Revival architecture...

 with the Boston Concert Opera (1986), the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its primary performing venue is the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts...

 (1998), the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra located in Buffalo, New York. Its primary performing venue is Kleinhans Music Hall, which is a National Historic Landmark. Its regular concert season features gala concerts, classics programming of core repertoire, Pops...

 (1999), the Utah Symphony Orchestra

Utah Symphony Orchestra

-History:The first attempt to create a symphony group in the Utah area occurred in 1892, before Utah was a state. The Salt Lake Symphony was created and presented just one concert before disbanding. In 1902 the Salt Lake Symphony Orchestra was formed, and it remained in existence until 1911...

 (1999), and the Philadelphia Orchestra

Philadelphia Orchestra

The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...

 (2000) among others. In 1986 she made her debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia

Opera Company of Philadelphia

The Opera Company of Philadelphia is an American opera company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the city's only company producing grand opera. The organization produces four fully staged opera productions annually, encompassing works from the seventeenth through the 21st century...

 as Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera

Un ballo in maschera

Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...

.

In 1987 Williams was a soloist in Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

's Symphony No. 8

Symphony No. 8 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. Because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is often performed with fewer than a...

with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

 and conductor James Levine

James Levine

James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...

. That same year she was the soprano soloist in Leoš Janáček

Leoš Janácek

Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...

's Amarus

Amarus

Amarus is a cantata composed by Czech composer Leoš Janáček, consisting of five movements. It was completed in 1897, having been started after Janáček's visit to Russia the previous summer....

and in works by Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

 with the Collegiate Chorale

Collegiate Chorale

The Collegiate Chorale is a symphonic choir based in New York City, USA. It was founded in 1941 by Robert Shaw, who was later to found the professional Robert Shaw Chorale. The Collegiate Chorale continues to give several performances annually in Carnegie Hall and other major venues...

 and conductor Robert Bass

Robert Bass (conductor)

Robert H Bass was an American conductor who notably served as the music director of the Collegiate Chorale in New York City for almost three decades. Bass studied conducting at Mannes College The New School for Music under Richard Westenburg, who was the Collegiate Chorale's director at that time...

 at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

. She sung under Bass again at Carnegie Hall in 1989 as Maria in the New York premiere of Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

' Friedenstag

Friedenstag

Friedenstag is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss, his Opus 81, to a German libretto by Joseph Gregor. Strauss had hoped to work again with Stefan Zweig on a new project after their previous collaboration of Die schweigsame Frau, but the Nazi authorities had harassed Strauss over his...

. In 1988 she performed the role of Donna Elvira in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

with the Florida Grand Opera

Florida Grand Opera

Florida Grand Opera is an American opera company based in Miami, Florida. FGO was created in 1994 from the consolidation of two opera companies in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale region:...

. In November 1989 she was the soprano soloist in Verdi's Requiem

Requiem (Verdi)

The Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi is a musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass for four soloists, double choir and orchestra. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist much admired by Verdi. The first performance in San Marco in Milan on 22 May...

with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra in Israel. She has also sung in concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

 and in roles with the Dallas Opera

Dallas Opera

The Dallas Opera is an opera company located in Dallas, Texas . The company was founded in 1957 as the Dallas Civic Opera by Laurence Kelly and Nicolà Rescigno, both of whom had been active with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first as administrator, the second as artistic director.-The company's...

, the Dayton Opera

Dayton Opera

Dayton Opera is an American opera company based in Dayton, Ohio. The company makes its home at the Schuster Center in downtown Dayton where it annually produces three operas and an operatic concert and has an annual budget of approximately $2 million...

, the Lake George Opera, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and the Pittsburgh Opera

Pittsburgh Opera

Pittsburgh Opera is an American opera company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is one of two opera companies in the city, the other being Opera Theatre of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Opera gives performances in several venues, primarily at the Benedum Center, with other performances at the...

.