The Ukrainian-German soprano Kateryna Kasper is distinguished by her stylistic versatility in opera, oratorio, and song. She regularly performs at leading opera houses, concert halls, and festivals worldwide, and is known for her nuanced interpretations and expressive range.
Recent highlights include acclaimed debuts as Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (her UK operatic debut) at the Longborough Festival Opera, directed by Jenny Ogilvie and conducted by Anthony Negus, as Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo with the Freiburger Barockorchester at Teatro Real in Madrid, Liceu in Barcelona, and at the Elbphilharmonie. She also performed as Piacere in Handel’s Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with the B’Rock Orchestra under René Jacobs at the Tongyeong International Music Festival, the Seoul Arts Center, and Tokyo Opera City. At the Staatsoper Berlin, she appeared as Kaiserin Arianna in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino as well as Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen at the Oper Frankfurt. Further engagements brought her to the Salzburger Festspiele as Soprano I in Mozart’s Mass in C minor. She also sang Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival under the direction of Jaap van Zweden.
Over the past two seasons, Kasper performed the role of Isacco in Mysliveček’s impressive Abramo ed Isacco with Collegium 1704 under Václav Luks at the Rudolfinum in Prague and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
She recently made her Canadian debut with Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with the Arion Baroque Orchestra in Montréal, followed by performances with the Kammerorchester Basel in Basel and Vienna.
Her oratorio work includes an extensive tour with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Freiburger Barockorchester under Francesco Corti through Europe and South Korea, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Wiener Konzerthaus with the Wiener Symphoniker and in the Isarphilharmonie in Munich under Patrick Hahn, Haydn’s Creation at the Tonhalle Zürich, and The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross with the RIAS Kammerchor at the Konzerthaus Berlin, which will be released on CD.
Upcoming Season
This season, the singer has numerous important operatic and concert engagements planned. She will make two significant role debuts: as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, returning to her home opera house, and as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Ghent. She will also once again perform as Arianna in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino with the Freiburger Barockorchester under René Jacobs on tour, with stops in Valencia, at the Teatro Real Madrid, the Konzerthaus Freiburg, at the Musikfestival Heidelberger Frühling, and at DeSingel in Antwerp. In Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, she will take on the role of Aci at the Händel-Festspiele in Halle as well as in Barcelona and Seville. Further concerts include Brahms’ German Requiem with the Bochumer Symphoniker and Bach’s St. John Passion with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria under the direction of Karel Mark Chichon.
Opera Engagements
(c) Monika Rittershaus
From 2014 to 2024, Kasper was a member of the ensemble at her home opera house, Oper Frankfurt, where she embodied a wide range of roles spanning from Baroque to contemporary opera. These included Anima in Cavalieri’s Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo, Giacinta in Cesti’s L’Orontea, Romilda, Oriana, Angelica, and Tigrane in Handel’s Xerxes, Amadigi, Orlando, and Radamisto; Angelica in Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso; Susanna, Pamina, Zerlina, Venus in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, Ascanio in Alba; Antonida in Glinka’s Ivan Susanin; the title role in Flotow’s Martha; Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel; Nannetta in Verdi’s Falstaff; Sophie in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier; Titania in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the Young Woman in the world premiere of Der Goldene Drache – a role written for her by Péter Eötvös and presented in co-production with Ensemble Modern. She has also performed operetta roles such as Countess Anastasia in Kálmán’s Die Csárdásfürstin and Valencienne in Lehár’s Die lustige Witwe.
Operatic engagements have taken Kateryna Kasper to the festivals in Edinburgh, Bregenz, Bergen, and St. Margarethen, as well as to the Los Angeles Opera, the Staatsoper Berlin and the Nationaltheater Mannheim. On a European tour with the B’Rock Orchestra under René Jacobs, she performed the role of Orasia in Telemann’s Orpheus, with performances at the Liceu in Barcelona and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Concert and Lieder
Kateryna Kasper has a wide-ranging concert repertoire from Bach’s oratorios and passions to Mahler’s symphonies, and from Haydn and Mozart to Brahms, Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Poulenc, and Henze.
She has collaborated with many leading orchestras and ensembles, including AKAMUS, Collegium 1704, Ensemble Modern, Holland Baroque, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Gulbenkian Lisbon, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto, and Turku Philharmonic Orchestra.
She has appeared at the Bachwoche Stuttgart, the Grafenegg Festival, the Händel-Festspiele in Halle and Karlsruhe, the Klangvokal Musikfestival Dortmund, the Telemann Festival Magdeburg, and the Tongyeong International Music Festival. Concert appearances have taken her to renowned venues such as the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Philharmonie in Cologne, Moscow, and Paris, the Seoul Arts Center, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, and Tokyo Opera City.
She devotes herself to art song with great passion, focusing on German and Ukrainian Romantic repertoire. Together with pianist Dmitry Ablogin, she recorded an album of songs by the Mendelssohn siblings, including several world premiere recordings of Fanny Hensel.
Collaborations
She has been working with conductors such as Ivor Bolton, Roland Böer, Hubert Buchberger, Constantinos Carydis, Bjarte Eike, Simone di Felice, Bernhard Forck, Michael Form, Howard Griffiths, Patrick Hahn, James Hendry, Michael Hofstetter, Karsten Januschke, Julia Jones, Hartmut Keil, Eun Sun Kim, Václav Luks, Giuseppe Mentuccia, Fausto Nardi, Geoffrey Paterson, Raphaël Pichon, Christoph Poppen, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Helmuth Rilling, Michael Schneider, Steven Sloane, Andreas Spering, Nathalie Stutzmann, Constantin Trinks, Felice Venanzoni, Sebastian Weigle, Sebastian Zierer, Jaap van Zweden.
Equally fruitful collaborations she enjoyed with stage directors such as Andrea Bernard, Nina Brazier, Brigitte Fassbaender, Barbora Horáková, Claus Guth, Ted Huffman, Netia Jones, Dorothea Kirschbaum, Barrie Kosky, Tilmann Köhler, Harry Kupfer, Jim Lucassen, Hendrik Müller, Jenny Ogilvie, Cornelius Obonya, Carolin Pienkos, Hans Walter Richter, Victoria Stevens, Elisabeth Stöppler, and Walter Sutcliffe.
Special musical relationships connect her with the conductor René Jacobs and her chamber music partners, the Frankfurt ensemble théâtre sans rideau, Trio Vivente (Kristin von der Goltz, Anne Katharina Schreiber, Jutta Ernst), the Eliot Quartet, and pianists Dmitry Ablogin, Hilko Dumno, Marcelo Amaral, Tobias Truniger and Lars Jönsson.
Discography
Kasper’s debut album ‘O wüßt ich doch den Weg zurück …’ (Ah! If I but Knew the Way Back …) features romantic songs about childhood and fairy tales, recorded with Hilko Dumno on the historic Steinway of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. In 2022, she released recordings of Shostakovich and Weinberg cycles with Trio Vivente, Weber’s Freischütz with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under René Jacobs (awarded the Opus Klassik), and her second lieder album ‘Ein süßes Deingedenken’ (A Tender Memory of Thee), featuring songs by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn with Dmitry Ablogin playing on a historic fortepiano from 1835.
Education and Awards
Kasper studied with Raisa Kolesnik at the Prokofiev Music Academy in Donetsk, Ukraine, and subsequently in Nuremberg with Edith Wiens and in Frankfurt with Hedwig Fassbender, supported by a DAAD scholarship. She won the prestigious Mirjam-Helin International Singing Competition in Helsinki in 2014, preceded by prizes at the IVC ’s-Hertogenbosch (2010) and The Queen Sonja International Music Competition in Oslo (2011).
