Hot Ticket - Deborah Voigt's NY Premiere of VOIGT LESSONS, Thursday 2/26

92Y presents the New York City premiere of Voigt Lessons, starring internationally acclaimed opera star Deborah Voigt, on Thursday, February 26. In the show - co-created with Tony® Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally and acclaimed opera and theater director Francesca Zambello - Voigt performs arias, pop songs, standards and spirituals of deep personal significance, along with anecdotes and backstage stories describing her astonishing rise to operatic heights, despite her private challenges. Voigt Lessons, an evening imbued with Voigt's trademark warmth, candor and sense of humor, premiered at Glimmerglass in 2011 to rave reviews. The New York Times hailed it as "chatty, witty, and sometimes painfully poignant," andToronto's Globe and Mail called it "an absolute gem."

Thursday night's presentation has Kevin Stites at the piano, and has been staged by Richard Jay-Alexander. Voigt also has a new, best-selling memoir Call Me Debbie: True Confessions of a Down-to-Earth Diva was published on Tuesday, January 27, 2015 and she was named WQXR's inaugural Susan W. Rose Artist-in-Residence in September 2014. "The Sopranos with Debbie Voigt," the station's new opera series, is heard Saturdays at noon and Wednesdays at 10 pm. Call Me Debbie will be available for sale at 92Y, and Voigt will sign copies following the performance. For tickets, click here.

Deborah Voigt is recognized as one of the world's most versatile singers and one of music's most endearing personalities. Throughout her career, Ms. Voigt has given definitive performances of iconic roles in German opera, from Wagner's Sieglinde (Die Walküre) and Isolde to Richard Strauss's Ariadne and Salome. Her starring role as Brünnhilde in Robert Lepage's new Ring cycle at the Metropolitan Opera earned international acclaim. She is also noted for her starring roles in such popular Italian roles as Tosca, Aida, Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino and La fanciulla del West.

At the same time, as a devotee of Broadway and American song, Ms. Voigt has given acclaimed performances of popular fare. She has sung with Barbara Cook and Dianne Reeves at the Hollywood Bowl, Kristin Chenoweth at Carnegie Hall, opened the new Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, where she sang Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'With One Look' from Sunset Boulevard and delivered a powerful duet of 'I Loves You Porgy' from the Gershwin's Porgy & Bess with Norm Lewis. She also appeared with Rufus Wainwright at the BBC Proms, and she has given performances in Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. In the summer of 2011 Ms. Voigt won praise as Annie Oakley at the Glimmerglass Festival, headlining both Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun and the world premiere of her own Voigt Lessons, the one-woman show she developed with award-winning playwright Terrence McNally and director Francesca Zambello.

Leading the highlights of Ms. Voigt's 2014/15 season is HarperCollins's publication of her memoir Call Me Debbie: True Confessions of a Down-to-Earth Diva. As WQXR's inaugural Susan W. Rose Artist-in-Residence, Ms. Voigt will host the classical station's new fall series, "The Sopranos with Debbie Voigt," and several major events and master classes. She returns as artist-in-residence at the Washington National Opera, and she continues as a regular host of the Metropolitan Opera's "Live in HD" series, which is transmitted live to movie theaters around the world.

Ms. Voigt's extensive discography includes two popular and critically successful solo recordings for EMI Classics: All My Heart: Deborah Voigt Sings American Songs with pianist Brian Zeger, named one of the "Best of the Year" by Opera News magazine; and the Billboard top-five bestseller Obsessions, which presents scenes and arias from operas by Wagner and Strauss. Known to Twitter fans as a "Dramatic soprano and down-to-earth Diva," Ms. Voigt was named by The Los Angeles Times as one of the top 25 cultural tweeters to follow.

For more information, visit deborahvoigt.com, facebook.com/DeborahVoigt and twitter.com/debvoigt.