Swedish soprano Nina Stemme made her entrée into opera as a choral singer, after which she completed her vocal training—on a parallel track with her study of economics—at the Royal Theater Opera Studio in Stockholm. She made her debut as soloist singing Cherubino in Cortona, Italy. After garnering first prizes both at the BBC Singer of the World Competition and at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition, she partnered with the renowned tenor in Paris and Munich. In 1994 Nina Stemme made her Bayreuth Festival debut as Freia in Das Rheingold. Originally a lyric soprano, she gradually built up her dramatic repertoire and went on to appear as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser at the Savonlinna Festival, as Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer at the Vienna Staatsoper and at the Metropolitan Opera, as Marie in Wozzeck at Lyon, at the Salzburg Festival as Nyssia in Zemlinsky’s Kandaules, and at Zurich Opera as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. In spring 2003 Nina Stemme undertook her first Isolde in Wagner’s Tristan at the Glyndebourne Festival, after which she was engaged for the same role at the Bayreuth Festival (in 2005 and 2006), and she also sang the part in new productions in Zurich and at Covent Garden in London. Her role debuts as Arabella (in Göteborg), Ariadne (in Geneva), and Salome (in Barcelona) have recently expanded her Strauss repertoire. Moreover, she is part of the Vienna Staatsoper’s new Ring production, in which she has sung Sieglinde and the Siegfried Brünnhilde. She has recorded Tristan with Domingo and the Four Last Songs of Strauss under the baton Antonio Pappano. Since 2006 Nina Stimme has been a Swedish Royal Court Singer, and in 2008 King Carl XVI Gustaf conferred the distinction of the Royal Medal Litteris et Artibus.
Nina Stemme makes her LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut with this concert.
May 2010