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About
German mezzo-soprano Michaela Schuster made her debut with The Royal Opera in 2008 as Herodias (Salome) and has since sung Princesse de Bouillon (Adriana Lecouvreur), Venus (Tannhäuser), Klytämnestra (Elektra) and Nurse (Die Frau ohne Schatten) for The Royal Opera. She returns in the 2018/19 Season to sing Gertrud (Hansel and Gretel).
Schuster was born in Bavaria and began her career as an oboist before training as a singer at the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. She was a member of the ensemble of Darmstadt State Theatre 1999–2002 before beginning a freelance career. She now sings regularly for all the leading German opera houses and for such international companies as Vienna State Opera, Paris Opéra, La Scala, Milan, Metropolitan Opera New York, and the Salzburg Festival. In concert she has worked with leading orchestras and conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Kirill Petrenko and Christian Thielemann.
Schuster’s wide repertory includes many Wagner roles such as Sieglinde, Fricka and Waltraute (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Venus, Ortrud (Lohengrin), Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) and Kundry (Parsifal), 20th-century roles such as Marie (Wozzeck) and Judit (Duke Bluebeard’s Castle), several roles in operas by Richard Strauss and Italian repertory, including Amneris (Aida), Eboli (Don Carlo) and Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana). Her varied discography includes CDs of Mahler’s Symphony no.2, Das Rheingold, Götterdämmerung, Siegfried Wagner’s Sonnnenflammen and Glanet’s Caligula, and DVDs of Lohengrin and The Royal Opera’s Salome.