Encompass Arts

Cheryl Studer’s startling and brilliant career began at a very early age. After studying voice during high school and college, her promising talent caught Leonard Bernstein’s attention; he gave her full scholarships to the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, where she studied with Phyllis Curtin. She debuted at Tanglewood in 1976 in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, who invited her for a series of concerts with the BSO at Symphony Hall during the 1978-1979 season.

She then went to Austria and studied Lied at the Schubert Institute; among her teachers were Irmgard Seefried, Brigitte Fassbaender and Hans Hotter. The great baritone persuaded her to stay in Europe for the year and study with him in Vienna. She was then hired by Wolfgang Sawallisch as a permanent member of the Bavarian State Opera, where she spent two consecutive seasons. At the end of the 1981-82 season, she left the Munich ensemble to join the Staatstheater Darmstadt for two seasons, before going to Berlin to be part of the Deutsche Oper ensemble for the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons.

Ms. Studer sang her first big role (Violetta) as a guest artist at the Staatstheater Braunschweig in the spring of 1983. In the summer of that same year, the Bayerische Staatsoper called her to their Summer Festival to sing Irene (Rienzi) and Drola (Die Feen) under Maestro Sawallisch (both released on CD by Orfeo). She made her North American opera debut in the role of Micaela (Carmen) in 1984 for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She caught the world’s attention for the first time at the 1985 Bayreuth Festival, when she sang Elisabeth (Tannhäuser) under Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Since then, Ms. Studer has sung in the most prestigious houses in the world: Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona (debut in 1986 in Das Rheingold as Freia), Opéra de Paris (debut the same year in Die Zauberflöte as Pamina), San Francisco Opera (debut in Die Meistersinger as Eva, also in 1986), Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (debut in 1987 in Tannhäuser as Elisabeth), La Scala (operatic debut in Don Giovanni as Donna Anna in 1987), New York Metropolitan Opera (debut in 1988 in Carmen as Micaela), Vienna State Opera (debut in Elektra as Chrysothemis in 1989). She debuted at the Salzburg Summer Festival that same year and in the same role.

Ms. Studer’s repertoire reveals a soprano of exceptional versatility that has perhaps not been encountered since the great Lilly Lehmann. From Mozart’s Queen of the Night, Donna Anna and Countess Almaviva to Wagner’s Sieglinde, Elisabeth and Elsa; from Rossini’s Mathilde and Semiramide to Donizetti’s Lucia; from Verdi’s Odabella and Violetta to Gounod’s Marguerite and the great heroines of Richard Strauss, her repertoire encompasses more than 70 roles.

In addition to her appearances in the most renowned opera houses of the world, Ms. Studer has never forgotten her first love: the Lied. Although she has been singing Lieder since her early years, she made her first big European tour in 1992; ever since, she has been giving Lieder recitals in many European cities, as well as in the USA and the Far East. Although an acclaimed interpreter of the great Germanic Lieder composers (in particular Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf), she also loves Debussy’s Ariettes oubliées and Samuel Barber’s songs.

Ms. Studer appears regularly as a concert soloist with the world’s most famous orchestras: the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the London Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Boston Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, to name but a few. Her concert repertoire includes Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, Mozart’s concert arias, Verdi’s Requiem, Wagner’s Wesendonk-Lieder and Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder, as well as other orchestral Lieder.

Cheryl Studer has numerous vocal awards and distinctions, among them the Grand Prix du Disque - Prix Maria Callas; the International Classical Music Award (1993 - London) in the category of Best Female Singer of the Year; the Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize; and Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year (1994). Her profuse discography includes a large number of recordings which have received international awards. She has also starred in over 11 movies of operas which were originally aired on television, and are still available today on DVD.