Evelyn Herlitzius

German soprano Evelyn Herlitzius studied at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre and in 1993 won the first prize at the international singing competition ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’. She sang Leonore (Fidelio) at the 1996 Bregenz Festival and appeared in Henze’s Venus and Adonis at the Bavarian State Opera, among other engagements, before joining the Dresden Semperoper in 1997. Since then, she has appeared there in many of the major dramatic soprano roles, including Isolde (Tristan und Isolde), Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Brünnhilde (Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung), Kundry (Parsifal), Salome, the Dyer’s Wife (Die Frau ohne Schatten), Elektra and Turandot.

Evelyn Herlitzius has performed to acclaim at prestigious opera houses such as the State Operas in Berlin, Munich and Vienna, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Scala, Milan, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Liceu in Barcelona and the opera houses in Monte Carlo and Bilbao. Simon Rattle invited her to sing with the Berlin Philharmonic in concert performances of Erwartung in Berlin and New York in 2009, and as Brünnhilde in a concert performance of Die Walküre in 2012.

Evelyn Herlitzius made her Bayreuth Festival debut in 2002 as Brünnhilde, repeating this role in performances of Wagner’s Ring in 2003 and 2004. She returned to Bayreuth in 2006 and 2007 as Kundry, in 2010 as Ortrud in a new production of Lohengrin and in 2015 as Isolde. In 2011 she sang the Dyer’s Wife under Christian Thielemann for her debut at the Salzburg Festival, returning in 2017 as Goneril in Reimann’s Lear. In 2013 she sang the title role in Patrice Chéreau’s production of Elektra for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and in 2016 appeared as Brünnhilde at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden.

Engagements in recent seasons have included Ortrud (Lohengrin) at the Paris Opéra, her Metropolitan Opera debut as Kundry, the Nurse (Die Frau ohne Schatten) at the Verbier Festival, Kostelnička (Jenůfa) at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, at the Berlin State Opera and at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, a staged version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Stuttgart State Opera and Madame de Croissy (Dialogues des Carmélites) at the Zurich Opera.

In the 2022/23 season Evelyn Herlitzius will sing Judith (Duke Bluebeard’s Castle) at Theater Basel and make her directing debut at the Wiesbaden State Theatre with Fidelio.

In 2002 Evelyn Herlitzius was awarded the title of Kammersängerin. In 1999 she won the Christel Goltz Prize and in 2006 the German theatre prize Der Faust. The DVD of her performance in Elektra at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence received an International Opera Award in 2015.