Deborah Sasson was born Deborah Ann O’Brien on August 22, 1959, in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a soprano, musical theater performer, composer, and pop singer. Her musical repertoire ranges from opera and musical theater to classical crossover and pop music. She began singing in a high school band as a teenager. She then studied classical voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory, graduating with a Master of Music degree. Her first engagements took her to the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She made her Broadway debut in *Show Boat*. Leonard Bernstein subsequently cast her in the Hamburg production of West Side Story, in which she played Maria. From 1979 to 1982, Deborah Sasson was a member of the ensemble at the Theater Aachen. She also made guest appearances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the San Francisco Opera, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, and the Bayreuth Festival. There, she appeared as a Flower Maiden in Wagner’s Parsifal between 1982 and 1989. Starting in 1988, Deborah Sasson increasingly devoted herself to pop music. With the single “(Carmen) Danger in Her Eyes,” she reached No. 21 on the German singles charts in 1988. “Passion and Pain” followed in 1989, climbing to No. 33. In the same year, the album Deborah Sasson reached No. 60 on the German album charts. Her best-known albums include Romance (1984), Deborah Sasson (1989), Singin’ Classics (1991), Best of Me (1992), Two Sides of Deborah Sasson (1994), Moments in Love (1997), Spread Out Your Wings (2006), Pop Classics (2008), and Unforgettable – Die schönsten Filmklassiker (2015). Together with Jochen Sautter, she composed the musicals The Phantom of the Opera and The Little Prince.
