Fatma Said

Egyptian soprano Fatma Said grew up in Cairo, where she attended a German school. She began voice lessons at the age of 14 and, four years later, in 2009, moved to Berlin to study with Renate Faltin at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik. In 2012, Said won both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the Leyla Gencer Voice Competition in Istanbul, as well as Second Prize at the Robert Schumann Competition; she later also won the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition. After completing her bachelor’s degree, a scholarship enabled her to continue her training at the Academy of La Scala in Milan, becoming the first Egyptian ever to do so, and to gain practical stage experience in the opera studio of the renowned opera house. In 2016, she sang Pamina in a new production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute directed by Peter Stein, followed by Amor in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in 2018. Further engagements have taken Said to the Berlin and Hamburg Staatsoper companies; the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples; the Salzburg Mozartwoche; the BBC Proms; the Schubertiade; and the Schleswig-Holstein, Wexford, and Lockenhaus festivals. She was artist-in-residence at the Konzerthaus Berlin in the 2022–23 season and held the same position at the Vienna Konzerthaus in 2023–24. In concert, she has performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Staatskapelle Dresden, appearing in the latter’s 2024 New Year’s Eve concert. In the fall of 2025, she took part in the opening ceremony of the New Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Said is an exclusive Warner Classics artist, and her recordings have received a Gramophone Award, a BBC Music Magazine Award, and an Opus Klassik. Most recently, in October 2026, she released The Pyramids Recital, a recording of her performance in front of the Pyramids of Giza, featuring music ranging from Handel, Mozart, and Puccini to chansons and Arabic songs.

One previous appearance at Lucerne Festival: on 18 March 2018, when she made her Festival debut in a concert of arias by Mozart, with the IBERACADEMY Orchestra conducted by Roberto González-Monjas.

October 2026