professional
make believe-er
about
Sydney Roslin is a performer, director, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. A versatile performer and crossover artist known for her engaging performance style and warm vocal tone, Sydney feels equally at home performing theatre, opera, sacred works, choral music, and new works. Recent roles include Adolfo Pirelli in Sweeney Todd, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Martha in Heathers, and Fidalma in Il matrimonio segretto. She can also be heard singing as the High Holy Days cantorial soloist at Falmouth Jewish Congregation in Falmouth, MA, and as a frequent singer in the Grace Church professional choir in New York City.
As a director, Sydney upholds a collaborative spirit in the rehearsal room and especially enjoys working with emerging writers to bring new works to life. She approaches established works with both an active curiosity and respect for performance practice history and a desire to find new resonance in the present cultural moment. Most recently, Sydney directed Handel's Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno alongside conductor Jory Vinikour for Opera Neo, a production that was called "absolutely brilliant" by the San Diego Union-Tribune. Other projects include assistant directing a new production of Mozart’s La finta giardinera with Opera Neo in partnership with the Hungarian State Opera under director András Almási-Tóth, assistant directing a radical new staging of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal under director Theresa Lang at the Boston Conservatory, and assistant directing productions of The Barber of Seville and Ariodante at Opera Neo under director Peter Kozma.
As an avid creator, Sydney has written works including On Our Street, a chamber opera addressing themes of modern anti-Semitism, for which she was the librettist in collaboration with composer Zachary James Ritter. While at the Boston Conservatory, she also wrote and performed her one-woman show, From Tolochin to Tin Pan Alley: Irving Berlin and the American Dream, which explores Berlin's roots as an immigrant Ashkenazi Jew and the challenges of his subsequent assimilation into American society.
Sydney is a proud graduate of the Boston Conservatory at the Berklee College of Music, where she earned her MFA in Musical Theater Performance, and of Carnegie Mellon University, where she received her BFA in Vocal Performance and BA in Creative Writing.
Photo by Nile Scott Studios