In 2007, Sjöwall won the AmericanJenny Lind competition sponsored by the Barnum Festival and in cooperation with the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, which led to a concert tour of Sweden. In 2008, she made her professional debut as Micaëla in a West Bay Opera staging of Carmen. She has since appeared with Arizona Opera, Nashville Opera, Opera Idaho, San Francisco Lyric Opera, Festival Opera of Walnut Creek, Pacific Opera Project, and the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera. She has performed a variety of roles, including Violetta in La traviata, Contessa Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, Pamina in The Magic Flute, Gilda in Rigoletto, Liù in Turandot, the Governess in The Turn of the Screw, Mrs. P in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Older Alyce in Glory Denied. She also created the role of Anna Roosevelt Boettiger in the world premiere performances of The First Lady, an opera depicting the days following Franklin D. Roosevelt's death and most recently created the role of Professor Elyn Saks in the world premiere of The Center Cannot Hold, based on the book of the same title. Naxos released a studio recording of Michael Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, featuring Sjöwall, Matthew Treviño, and Ryan MacPherson with Dean Williamson conducting the Nashville Opera Orchestra on September 9, 2016. The album was recorded at Ocean Way Nashville, located in the heart of Nashville's Music Row. In 2009, Sjöwall was part of the singing cast for the radio musical The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman by Sparks, which premiered on Sveriges Radio and was later released on vinyl and in CD format. Andy Gill in The Independent gave The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman a maximum rating of 5 stars and included the record among his 20 albums of the year. The world premiere of the live musical took place on June 25, 2011, at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. It was hosted by the Los Angeles Film Festival and starred Sparks, Guy Maddin, Finnish actor Peter Franzén as Bergman, Tammy Glover recreating her role as the Hollywood Welcoming Committee, Sjöwall reprising her role as the Hollywood starlet, and Ann Magnuson as Greta Garbo. She appears on Sparks' latest album Hippopotamus, which was released by BMG Records on September 8, 2017, and entered the U.K. Album Charts at No. 7. Sjöwall is also the singer of the "Rapture Anthem" on the popular video gameBioShock. In 2019, Sjöwall performed the world premiere of a new musical work for soprano, narrator, and piano entitled Mother's Word. Through monologue and song, Mother's Word focuses on the untold stories of women, specifically mothers from the Bible, including Eve, Hagar, Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, Naomi, Ruth, Bathsheba, Elizabeth, and Mary. With text written by Marian Partee and music by Christina Whitten Thomas, the work explores how these women may have told their own stories. The premiere took place at La Cañada Presbyterian Church in May 2019, and featured Sjöwall with pianist Aiko Fukushima and director/narrator Tina Tong.
Reception
Of Sjöwall's appearance as Micaëla, the San Francisco Classical Voice wrote, "she lit up the proceedings with glowing, sweet tone and a radiant persona, which rightfully reaped some of the longest applause of the evening." Her 2009 performance as Gilda in Rigoletto was judged to show "real promise" with an "impressive high E-flat". In addition, her performance in Turandot was lauded as a "lovely and limpid Liù" that was "deeply affecting." After her role debut with Nashville Opera as Mrs. P in Michael Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, ArtsNash declared, "Her climactic singing scream of 'Philistine!' at Dr. S is one of the most electrifying moments I've experienced in more than 40 years of attending live opera and theater performances." As Older Alyce in Tom Cipullo's Glory Denied with Nashville Opera, "We are lucky to have a singer with so clear a vocal affinity to new music as Rebecca Sjöwall. Her voice just takes to it so easily, I forget she’s singing. That's not just because of her several patter passages in Glory Denied, but the natural ease in her vocal precision and her voice' richness give a relatable life to the character. She made me feel for Alyce in a way that the set-up of the narrative discourages." - Tracy Monaghan, Schmopera
