Renowned for her performances of the music of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, Elisabet Strid (Sweden) is much sought-after on both operatic and concert stages. The singer performs at the Leipzig Opera, the Norwegian National Opera, the Semperoper in Dresden, Teatro Real in Madrid and Stockholm’s Royal Swedish Opera. In 2013 she debuted at the Bayreuth Festival as Freya (Das Rheingold). The same year, her American debut took place at Michigan Opera Theatre where she performed Senta (Der fliegende Holländer), which was then followed by the production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago – as Sieglinde (Die Walküre).
Salome, one of the most complicated opera parts, she performed for the first time at the premiere of the production by the Leipzig Opera hailed as a “brilliant, impressive and stunningly mature debut” (18.03.2018, Leipziger Volkszeitung). In the same part, she performed for the first time in Italy, on the stage of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, where she demonstrated an “absolute grasp of the role” (02.2019, online source L’Ape musicale).
However, a particularly spectacular success awaited the singer in a production at the Israeli Opera: “Her voice was incredibly easily gliding between the most challenging bends of Salomé’s part – here a filigree silver light, there a dark-register flicker, there a blast-it-all blue flame when uttering an ecstatic final “I kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan.” Each register yielding a gamut of finest dynamic inflexions and inner expressiveness…” (09.01.2019, online source Culbyt ). “Moreover, in the last half hour, she keeps singing as if it were one long aria. She does it in style, fully aware of the approach to the idiom of this opera, a beautiful soprano with not only the vocal abilities required by the role but also top dramatic skills.” (14.01.2019, online source PlaystoSee).
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, one of the top German character tenors and a Kammersänger at the Bavarian State Opera since 2021, has an expansive repertoire. The glory of a “great singer-actor” (Opernmagazin) was brought to him by the parts of the Witch (Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck), Mime (Das Rheingold, Siegfried by Wagner), Claus Narren (a scenic version of Gurre Lieder by Schönberg), Monostatos (Die Zauberflöte by Mozart) and many more. The singer performs on the major opera stages around the globe – at the Paris National Opera, the Royal Opera in Covent Garden, the Glyndebourne Festival (where he has sung over a hundred and thirty times!), the Bavarian and Vienna State Operas, the Metropolitan Opera and La Scala. Many recordings of his performances are available.
The part of Herodes he sang at the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Volksoper, the Zürich Opera House, the Opéra national du Rhin (Strasbourg), the Bavarian Opera and at the Munich Opera Festival.
“He put in an absolutely first-class performance as the Tetrarch. His jerky mannerism and facial expressions were all perfectly placed, his erratic behavior gloriously bizarre. He even managed to be fascinated and aroused by Salome’s dance. Here was a man who had definitely fallen into the abyss. Moreover, his acting was matched by his singing. Ablinger-Sperrhacke possesses a strong and flexible tenor with a pleasant tone, which he colored subtly to successfully underline his irrational behavior.” (18.09.2017, online resource OperaWire about the performance of the singer at the Vienna State Opera).
Art. Lebedev Studio