Opera Singers Fell ‘Head Over Heels’ While Playing Star-Crossed Lovers. Now They’re Married with 2 Kids (Exclusive)

Janelle GriffithFri, May 29, 2026 at 7:58 PM UTC

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Kathryn Lewek and Zach Borichevsky
Credit: Courtesy of Kathryn Lewek and Zach Borichevsky; Philip Groshong -

Soprano Kathryn Lewek and tenor Zach Borichevsky met in 2013 while competing in an international opera contest

Afterward, they stayed in touch and in 2015, were cast as star-crossed lovers Edgardo and Lucia in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in Charlotte, N.C.

Since then, the couple went on to marry and have two children who they often travel with for roles in the U.S. and abroad

Soprano Kathryn Lewek and tenor Zach Borichevsky have opera to thank for their successful careers — and their marriage.

Lewek and Borichevsky met in 2013 at Plácido Domingo's annual international opera competition, Operalia, which is held in a different city each year. Coincidentally, they both placed third, while Lewek also won the audience prize and took home a Rolex.

For the next year and a half, they casually stayed in touch, mostly through Facebook.

Then, in 2015, they were cast as star-crossed lovers Edgardo and Lucia in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at Opera Carolina in Charlotte, N.C.

"Within a few weeks, we were just completely head over heels for each other," Lewek tells PEOPLE.

They married on July 1, 2017, and have since welcomed two children, daughter Mackenzie, 7, and son Charlie, 4.

Lewek and Borichevsky, both 42, try to take on roles that allow them to work together, but when that's not possible, they do their best to stagger their schedules so that only one of them is working at a time.

At the start of the year, the family — who homeschool their kids and often travel abroad with Lewek's parents — spent three months together in Europe while Lewek was performing in Salzburg, Paris and Brussels.

Then it was off to Texas for Borichevsky, who had to begin rehearsals at Fort Worth Opera as Lt. Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly.

"We do the best we can to make sure the family isn't apart for very long periods of time, and while it’s important that we make the right decisions for our careers, our family priorities also enter into our decision making in a very real and important way," says Lewek.

Zach Borichevsky and Kathryn Lewek with their children, Charlie and Mackenzie, in 2023.
Credit: Courtesy of Kathryn Lewek and Zach Borichevsky

These days, Lewek is the one whose work is taking her away from her family in Connecticut. She's currently performing the role of Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata in France through June 6. During the six weeks she'll be away, Borichevsky is caring for their children — that is, when he isn't covering the role of Alfredo in La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera.

The couple will be back together soon, though. In June, they'll perform in Salome by Richard Strauss — she in the title role and he as Narraboth — at Cincinnati Opera.

Kathryn Lewek and Zach Borichevsky performed together for the first time in 2015 when they were cast as star-crossed lovers Edgardo and Lucia in Gaetano Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor."
Credit: Philip Groshong

Much of Lewek's career has been built upon singing one role in particular: the Queen of the Night in Mozart's TheMagic Flute. It is considered one of the industry's most difficult roles to cast because of its vocal demands.

Lewek holds the record for the most performances as the Queen of the Night at the Metropolitan Opera, with 85performances, and has sung the role more than 350 times worldwide.

Two recent productions she starred in at the Metropolitan Opera stand out Lewek says: one by Julie Taymor, a designer and director of The Lion King on Broadway, and another by actor and director Simon McBurney whose take she found "deliciously dark and artistically inspirational."

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"That's, to me, the most amazing thing about opera is that you can tell a different story with the same material based on who the director is and how they see it," she says.

As for how she keeps the role fresh, Lewek jokes it's by channeling her "middle-aged woman rage."

On a more serious note, she says that another thing that keeps her going is "thinking about the people in the audience that are seeing it for the first time live."

"Even if opera is not your thing, you've heard it [Queen of the Night aria] in a Volvo commercial or somewhere," she says. "It's such a famous, iconic tune that it gives me a thrill to know somebody out there is probably experiencing The Magic Flute for the first time."

Zach Borichevsky and Kathryn Lewek backstage for "La Bohéme" at Opera Colorado in 2025.
Credit: Courtesy of Kathryn Lewek and Zach Borichevsky

Over the years, Lewek and Borichevsky have performed together on numerous occasions, but Lewek's favorite project was a production of Roméo et Juliette directed by one of their friends in Toledo, Ohio back in 2024. "It was a special thing to be able to explore all those different flavors of love," she says.

Last year, the couple also broke new ground when they were cast in La bohème as Rodolfo and Musetta. The reason? It was the first time their characters weren't in love with each other.

Poetically, they recently signed contracts to perform together next year as Mimì and Rodolfo, one of the most famous opera couples,in another production of the show.

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Lewek says her love of music is multigenerational: Her grandmother, Joyce Sparrow Poetter, was an opera singer and her mother, Susan Poetter Blomshield, was a piano instructor. Although Poetter gave up her career to become a mother, she resumed studying opera in her 60s with a vocal teacher who would recognize Lewek's talent early on.

"She looked at my mom and said, 'Well, she's got your mother's operatic voice,' " Lewek recalls.

Still, it would take a couple of years for the full weight of that praise to land.

"At that point, opera didn't really make sense to me emotionally," Lewek says. "A couple years later, I saw it from a different light, and suddenly realized that it's just very truthful and genuine. All roads led to opera for me."

Borichevsky says he, too, was drawn to the operatic sound in his youth and had a fondness for Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli. His mother, Constance Borichevsky, hired a voice teacher who helped ground him in classical technique at a relatively early age for a tenor, between 15 and 18.

Of his career, Borichevsky says, "I do it because it has a unique ability to communicate truths about life and about love that I've never experienced from any other kind of art."

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”