Soprano Karina Brazas, described as “sumptuous and soaring" (Omaha World Herald), has built a career on repertoire ranging from the Baroque to the 21st century.

Upcoming performances in 2023-24 will include a performance of operatic scenes of Mozart and Verdi with Orchestra Omaha in November, a guest recital and masterclass with Hastings College, and a performance of Bachianias Brasileiras No. 5 at the Omaha Conservatory of Music in late February.

During the 2022-2023, Ms. Brazas joined Opera Omaha for X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X as the Reporter/Social Worker, made her role debut as the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors in a unique collaboration with Résonance Ensemble and Trinity Cathedral, and returned to Opera Omaha in the spring for Le nozze di Figaro. In addition to her operatic schedule, Ms. Brazas performed an evening of French song with the Salt Creek Song Festival, and performed as Papagena with the Omaha Symphony in their 2023 Gala honoring Jun and Ree Kaneko.

During the ongoing Covid pandemic, Ms. Brazas joined the Omaha Symphony twice, for their 2020 fall pops concert singing music of Mozart, Bizet, and Andrew Lloyd Weber, and as the soloist for their Choral Collaborative program in 2021. She was also slated to join Opera Omaha as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro, which was unfortunately canceled due to Covid. Previous seasons saw her role debut as Young Alyce in Glory Denied by Tom Cipullo in Saint Louis with Union Avenue Opera, as soprano soloist in Mozart's C Minor Mass with the Résonance Ensemble and Creighton University, and a return to the Omaha Symphony as the soprano soloist in Stravinsky's Pulcinella.

Some of her recent stage highlights include Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute, and Maya in the Three Way, all with Shreveport Opera, as well as Yum-Yum in The Mikado and Zerlina in Don Giovanni with Union Avenue Opera in Saint Louis. Her professional debut was Kitty Hart in Dead Man Walking with Central City Opera in Colorado, where she also sang as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and joined the cast of The Sound of Music. Other performances include Gretel in Hansel and Gretel with Opera Omaha, and Enitharmon in Opera Omaha's world premiere of Stranger from Paradise, where the Omaha World-Herald wrote that she “dazzled, singing in the evening's first aria in her portrayal of Blake's fantastical demigoddess Enitharmon.”

On the concert stage, Ms. Brazas sang the soprano soloist Cincinnati in 2018 in Bach's Cantata 57 Selig ist der Mann . In the fall of 2017, she joined Prisma Vocal Ensemble as the soprano soloist in Handel's Messiah. In previous seasons, she made her Omaha Symphony solo debut in Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, bowed with Orchestra Seattle as the soprano soloist in Vivaldi's Gloria, and performed as the soprano soloist in Fauré's Requiem with orchestras in Seattle and Minnesota. Ms. Brazas has been a regional finalist and multiple award winner from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, as well as winning the Katherine S. Tyrrell Memorial Award from the 2018 Shreveport Singer of the Year Competition.

Ms. Brazas spent the first twelve years of her life as a U.S. Army Brat, before her family settled in Olympia, Washington. She currently lives in the Midwest. In her spare time, she enjoys running, reading, traveling, and baking/eating cheesecake.