Nina Stemme

Swedish soprano Nina Stemme found her entrée into opera as a choral singer, after which she completed her vocal training—parallel to her study of business and economics—at the Royal Theater Opera Studio in Stockholm. She made her solo debut singing Cherubino in Cortona, Italy. After winning First Prize both in the BBC Singer of the World Competition and in Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition, she appeared in concert with the renowned tenor in Paris and Munich. In 1994 Stemme made her Bayreuth Festival debut as Freia in Das Rheingold. Originally singing as 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 the spring of 2003 Stemme undertook her first Isolde in Wagner’s Tristan at the Glyndebourne Festival, after which she was engaged for the same role by 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 Gothenburg), Ariadne (in Geneva), and Salome (in Barcelona) have recently expanded her Strauss repertoire. In 2010 she opened the season at La Scala in Milan as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre. Her recordings include Tristan und Isolde with Domingo, last year’s Fidelio from LUCERNE FESTIVAL and the Four Last Songs of Strauss. Since 2006 Nina Stemme has been a Swedish Royal Court Singer; in 2008 she received the Royal Medal Litteris et Artibus from King Carl XVI Gustaf, and she won the Laurence Olivier Award in 2010 and, in 2011, the Italian Premio Abbiati.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 12 August 2010 as Leonore in a concert performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio with the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA under Claudio Abbado.

August 2011