Christine Schäfer
Soprano
Her performance in the title role of Alban Berg’s Lulu in 1995 marked the international breakthrough of soprano Christine Schäfer. Eleven years later, when she sang Cherubino in Mozart’s Figaro in the same house, she not only made audiences erupt into riotous applause, but was also honoured by critics as “Singer of the Year”. Schäfer was one of the defining opera, lieder and concert singers of her generation with her crystal-clear voice, right up to its highest heights, and a profound understanding of the text.
The artist presented completely new interpretations of Schubert’s Winterreise and the main role in Verdi’s La Traviata, and she demonstrated her passion for experimentation in a poetic film about Schumann’s Dichterliebe and a CD album juxtaposing Baroque and modern songs by Henry Purcell and Georges Crumb. Schäfer, who worked closely with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the composer Aribert Reimann, performed at the opera houses in Paris, New York, Munich and Berlin, and on many occasions at the Salzburg Festival. She appeared regularly with the Berliner Philharmoniker under conductors such as Claudio Abbado and Sir Simon Rattle. Today, Christine Schäfer teaches as a professor at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin.
