Karla Burns

Karla Burns (born December 24, 1954) is an American operatic mezzo-soprano and actress who has performed nationally and internationally in opera houses, theatres, and on television. She is notably the first black person, African-American or otherwise, to win the Laurence Olivier Award, Britain's most prestigious award for theatre.

Biography

Karla Burns was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas to parents Ira Willie Lee Burns and Catherine S. Burns. Burns credits her parents for inspiring her musical gifts. Her father was a jazz and gospel pianist and her mother sang spirituals and old hymns at church. She played the clarinet in band while growing up and graduated from Wichita West High School.

Burns attended Wichita State University from which she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Education and a BA in Theater Performance. After leaving college, Burns appeared throughout the world in musical and classical theatre productions, operas and revues. Highlights of her career include performances with the Paris Opera, the Teatro Real in Madrid, Cairo Opera House, and the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. She has also appeared in performances at the Metropolitan Opera as Lily in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and in Noa Ain's Trio at Carnegie Hall in New York City.