Golda Schultz

The South African soprano Golda Schultz is “artiste étoile” at Lucerne Festival for the summer of 2022. Born in Cape Town in 1983, she completed her vocal studies at the university there and at the Juilliard School in New York and also took lessons with Johan Botha, Kiri Te Kanawa, and Michelle Breedt. She began her career in 2011 in the Opera Studio of the Bavarian Staatsoper, which engaged her as part of its permanent ensemble in 2014. Schultz has been freelancing and performing at renowned stages worldwide since 2018. She made her debut as Sophie in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier in 2015 at the Salzburg Festival, which invited her again in 2017 to perform Vitellia in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito. Schultz also made her debut at La Scala in Milan with the role of Sophie in 2016; she was first heard at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2017 as Pamina in The Magic Flute. She was especially acclaimed for the account of Agathe she gave in a new production of Weber’s Der Freischütz at the Bavarian Staatsoper in 2021. Other credits include Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Vienna Staatsoper, Zurich Opera, and the Glyndebourne Festival and a guest appearance at San Francisco Opera in Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life. In May 2022, Schultz sang the part of Ann Trulove in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera. In the 2022-23 season, she will appear as Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen at the Opéra national de Paris as well as Chicago Lyric Opera and will return to the Met as Adina in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. In the concert hall, Golda Schultz has worked with Gustavo Dudamel, Zubin Mehta, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Christian Thielemann, and Franz Welser-Möst. She was a special guest at the Last Night of the Proms in 2020. In the spring of 2022, she released her debut recital CD, This Be Her Verse, which features songs by five female composers.

July 2022