Biography

With Her "Beautifully Full, Radiant Mezzo-Soprano",

“artful acting and singing” (Kölner Stadtanzeiger), Katrin Wundsam has made herself a name at first-class opera houses, concert halls and festivals. The Austrian singer has appeared at venues such as the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Staatsoper Hamburg, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wiener Musikverein, Bregenz Festival, Salzburg Easter Festival, Innsbrucker Festwochen and in Grafenegg.

Katrin Wundsam is collaborating with some of the world‘s most renowned conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Alfred Eschwé, Adam Fischer, Markus Poschner, Francois Xavier Roth or Christian Thielemann. Under the baton of Marek Janowski, she has recorded Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall for Pentatone.

Katrin Wundsam recently added to her repertoire several iconic Wagnerian roles. In 2023, she sang her first Fricka in Das Rheingold at the Dresdner Musikfest with Kent Nagano, followed by Fricka in Das Rheingold and in Die Walküre, as well as Erste Norn and Waltraute in Götterdämmerung at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden and the May Festival in 2024. The mezzo-soprano also made her role debut as Magdalene in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Tokyo Spring Festival under the baton of Marek Janowski. Other recent engagements include her first Ježibaba, which she performed to great acclaim on the same evening as The Foreign Princess in a new staging of Rusalka at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, which earned her a nomination as Singer of the Year by the prestigious German magazine Opernwelt. Katrin Wundsam also appeared in the opening weeks of the Theater an der Wien as Lola in Kreisler’s Heute Abend: Lola Blau, as Garderobiere and Gymnasiast in a new production of Lulu at the Wiener Festwochen and on the concert platform in Eine musikalische Schlittenfahrt with the Munich Symphony Orchestra as well as in Mozart’s Requiem with the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra.

Engagements of the 2024/25 season include The Foreign Princess in Rusalka at the Staatsoper Hannover, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel for her Deutsche Oper Berlin debut, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Allegro Vivo Festival in Austria, Bach’s Matthäus-Passion at the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl and Berio’s Folk Songs with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie at the Saar Music Festival.

Katrin Wundsam has an intense relationship with the Cologne Opera House, where she was part of the stable company from 2009 to 2016 and where during these years she performed roles such as Carmen, Lola Blau, Nicklausse (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), Suzuki (Madama Butterfly), Preziosilla (La forza del destino), Sesto (La clemenza di Tito), Penelope (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria) and Bradamante (Alcina).

Other highlights of her career comprise Hänsel in new productions of Hänsel und Gretel at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden an the Cologne Opera House, Hänsel, Dorabella (Così fan tutte) and Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia) at the Staatsoper Hamburg, Hänsel and Dorabella at the Semperoper Dresden, Maddalena (Rigoletto) at the Bregenz Festspival, Enea (Didone abbandonata) at the Innsbrucker Festwochen, Foreign Princess (Rusalka) at the Cologne Opera House, Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Schumann’s Requiem für Mignon at the Musikverein Wien, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Twice Through the Heart at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.

Katrin Wundsam grew up in Neustift, Austria, and studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She began her career in the ensemble of the Stadttheater Passau, where she performed parts such as Bradamante (Orlando Furioso), Miss Jessel (The Turn of the Screw) or Anaide (Florentiner Strohhut).