Hye-Youn Lee

Soprano

Website: www.hyeyounlee.com

Biography

Born in South Korea, she studied first in Berlin with Renate Krahmer and Julia Varady before joining Les Jeunes Voix du Rhin at L’Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg. She went on to L’Atelier Lyrique at L’Opéra National de Paris before moving to the UK where she made her London debut as Marie La Fille du Régiment for Opera Holland Park and was named Face to Watch in Classical Music. Among her roles are Lucia Lucia di Lammermoor, Elettra Idomeneo Re Di Creta, Blanche de la Force Dialogues des Carmélites, Mimi and Musetta La Boheme and Desdemona Otello (Rossini). Her most recent successes include Madame Mao Nixon in China, Donna Anna Don Giovanni, Micaëla Carmen, Strauss’s Daphne, the Verdi Gala, Violetta La Traviata all for Scottish Opera. She was Musetta La Boheme for Grange Park Opera, Ciò Ciò San Madama Butterfly for Finnish National Opera and Icelandic Opera and she sang her first Liù Turandot in concert with the Cambridge Philharmonic. She appears regularly in concert and was soprano solo in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the Three Choirs Festival and with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. In Spain she was soprano solo in the Mozart Requiem, the Mozart Great Mass in C minor and Handel’s Messiah at the Auditorio Nacional de Música Madrid.

Recent outstanding reviews

La Traviata – Scottish Opera (Spring 2024)

And Violetta is this revival’s greatest asset. Hye-Youn Lee embodies every aspect of the character’s journey with believable humanity. She’s perhaps at her finest during the coloratura fireworks of Act 1, a passage that suits her light soprano, but she also brings touching warmth to the heartbreak of Act 2, and she darkens her voice with eerie effectiveness as she lies on her deathbed in Act 3. Nothing we’ve seen in her previous roles with the company hinted at such versatility and sheer dramatic effectiveness. She has the makings of a star.
The Times – Simon Thompson, 10th May 2024

Hye-Youn Lee, a singer who completely inhabits a role, was sensational as Violetta, her lovely burnished lower register opening out into a bright, accurate and considerable coloratura, pacing herself well for this demanding work. Her first act sequence including “Ah, fors’è lui” was a triumph.
Bachtrack – David Smythe, 09 May 2024

Ever since her superb Micaela in the otherwise dramatically compromised Scottish Opera Carmen of exactly a year ago, I’ve been waiting for Korean soprano Hye-Youn Lee’s eponymous Violetta.  It was worth every minute of the wait. The dramatic transformation from shallow party girl who has never known true love, via conflicted vacillation between two possible futures, to impassioned devoted mistress of the besotted (but impecunious) Alfredo was matched by a vocal transformation, her timbre infused with increasing warmth. The battle of wills (which she ultimately loses) with Alfredo’s father Giorgio, demanding she sacrifice her happiness for that of Alfredo’s sister, gave the rapt audience fiery vocal power contrasted with heart-rending dejection, the vocal characterisation skilfully matched by body language.  Act III, deathbed from start to finish, managed to deliver the demanding pathos of the role vocally and dramatically without shattering the illusion of a broken body – not always achieved in my experience. This role, in my opinion Verdi’s best for the tessitura, has been waiting for Hye-Youn; she gave it everything.  Superb.
Edinburgh Music Review – Donald Hurley – 12th May 2024

Daphne – Scottish Opera (Autumn 2023)

Hye-Youn Lee has an ideal voice for Daphne, a flexible gorgeous soprano that captures both Daphne’s innocence and desperate naivety.
The Times – Simon Thompson – 6th September 2023

South Korean soprano Hye-Youn Lee superb in the title role.
The Guardian – Keith Bruce – 6th September 2023

Hye-Youn Lee was utterly magnificent as Daphne, a fervent blend of soulfulness and virtuosic precision.
The Scotsman – Ken Walton – 8th September

Carmen – Scottish Opera – Spring 2023

When José’s childhood sweetheart Micaëla (played by the outstanding South Korean soprano Hye-Youn Lee) arrives in Seville, for example, she is subjected to a display of predictably toxic masculinity by her erstwhile lover’s army comrades……However on opening night, it was Lee’s stunning emotive rendering of Micaëla’s aria that had the audience in raptures.
The Telegraph – Mark Brown – 13th May 2023

Outstanding moments spring out of the blue, such as Hye-Youn Lee’s heartstopping Act 3 aria as Micaëla.
The Scotsman – Ken Walton – 15th May 2023

Giving a fine performance as the maligned Micaëla, Hye-Youn Lee thrilled in her Act 3 aria as she tried to persuade the wayward, love-struck José to return home.
Bachtrack – David Smythe – 17th May 2023

Roles performed

Videos

Concerts include

Beethoven: MISSA SOLEMNIS; Beethoven SYMPHONY NO.9; Brahms EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM; Coleridge Taylor: THE SONG OF HIAWATHA; ELGAR: The Apostles; Fauré: REQUIEM; Händel MESSIAH; Mahler SYMPHONY No. 8; Mozart MISSA SOLEMNIS; Mozart MASS IN C MINOR; Mozart REQUIEM; Rossini STABAT MATER; Strauss: VIER LETZTE LIEDER; Verdi: MESSA DA REQUIEM.

Photos