Biography
Heather Engebretson is a Juilliard graduate, an award-winner at the renowned Savonlinna Opera Festival as well as a special-award-winner at the “Hans Gabor Belvedere” singing competition in Vienna. In addition to her first opera achievements in the USA, she sang Schubert’s G Major Mass at the Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium as well as Bach’s Magnificat at the Alice Tully Hall in New York.In Germany, she joined the soloist ensemble of the Staatsoper Hannover in 2013. By the season of 2014/15, she changed to the Staatstheater Wiesbaden where she is a welcome guest until today and where she performed the roles of Violetta/La Traviata, Donna Elvira/Don Giovanni, Konstanze/Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Oscar/Un ballo in maschera, and Euridice in Orpheus and Eurydike. In the season 2016/17 Heather Engebretson was a member of the ensemble of the Staatsoper Hamburg, performing, among other roles, Musetta in La Bohème.
Furthermore, guest engagements include the title role of Katie Mitchell’s production Alcina under the baton of Andrea Marcon at the Bolshoi-Theater and at the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Four Women in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Königin der Nacht/Die Zauberflöte at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Mimì/La Bohème at Berlin’s Komische Oper, Barbarina/Le nozze di Figaro, Sophie in Massenet’s Werther, as well as Waldvogel in Keith Warner’s Ring under the baton of Sir Antonio Pappano at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Liù/Turandot at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, as well as Donna Anna/Don Giovanni in Cagliari.
On the concert stage, Engebretson’s most recent guest performances were with the Dresden Philharmonic in Messiah, in Carmina burana with the Dortmund Philharmonic, the soprano part in Mahler’s Symphony no 2 with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and the soprano part in Beethoven’s Symphony no 9 with the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra.
In season 2019/20 Heather Engebretson returned to the Deutsche Oper Berlin performing the Four Women in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, as well as to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Sophie/Werther under the baton of Edward Gardner. In addition, she embodied Donna Anna/Don Giovanni at Opera Frankfurt and Beethoven 9th with the Hamburger Symphoniker and with Guillermo García Calvo at the conductor’s stand in Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle.
Engagements of the 2021/22 season included the title role Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly under the musical direction of Antonello Manacorda, Goose-Girl in Engelbert Humperdinck’s Königskinder, both at the Frankfurt Opera; other engagements included appearances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Woglinde / Rheingold and the Four Women in Contes d’Hoffmann as well as at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden as Donna Elvira / Don Giovanni.
In the coming 22/23 season she will take on the title roles in Strauss Salome at the Theater Basel and in Oryx and Crake at the Hessian State Theater in Wiesbaden. In Milan she can be heard with Beethoven's Ninth under Thomas Guggeis.
Artist Website
www.heatherengebretson.comManagement
General ManagementArtist Manager

Boris Orlob
Managing Director
boris@orlob.net
Mobil: +49-172-8 51 55 14
Repertoire
Repertoire Concert
Bach, J.S. | Magnificat |
Beethoven | Missa Solemnis |
Brahms | Ein deutsches Requiem |
Fauré | Requiem |
Händel | Messiah |
Orff | Carmina Burana |
Strauss, R. | Vier letzte Lieder |
Verdi | Requiem |
Repertoire Opera
Adams | Nixon in China | Chiang Ch'ing |
Bellini | La sonnambula | Amina |
Berg | Lulu | Lulu |
Berlioz | Béatrice et Bénédict | Héro |
Britten | The Turn of the Screw | Flora |
Donizetti | L'elisir d'amore | Adina |
Lucia di Lammermoor | Lucia | |
Gounod | Roméo et Juliette | Juliette |
Handel | Alcina | Alcina |
Humperdinck | Hansel and Gretel | Gretel |
Massenet | Manon | Manon |
Werther | Sophie | |
Mozart | Die Entführung aus dem Serail | Konstanze |
Die Zauberflöte | Königin der Nacht | |
Pamina | ||
Don Giovanni | Donna Elvira | |
Donna Anna | ||
Zerlina | ||
Idomeneo | Ilia | |
Offenbach | Les contes d'Hoffmann | Antonia, Olympia, Giulietta, Stella |
Puccini | Gianni Schicchi | Lauretta |
La Bohème | Mimi | |
Musetta | ||
Turandot | Liù | |
Strauss, R. | Arabella | Fiakermilli |
Zdenka | ||
Ariadne auf Naxos | Zerbinetta | |
Echo | ||
Najade | ||
Stravinsky | The Rake's Progress | Anne Trulove |
Verdi | La traviata | Violetta |
Rigoletto | Gilda | |
Un ballo in maschera | Oscar | |
Wagner | Das Rheingold | Freia |
Woglinde | ||
Götterdämmerung | Woglinde | |
Siegfried | Waldvogel |
Press
Madama Butterfly / Oper Frankfurt / 24.05.2022 / swr.de
"Eine wunderschöne, tonhöhensichere Stimme mit der Darstellungskraft einer Tragödin."
Madama Butterfly / Oper Frankfurt / 24.05.2022 / faz.net
"Heather Engebretson ist eine zarte Frau mit einer starken, dabei so leichten, selbst in den Ausbrüchen scheinbar mühelosen Stimme, die vor Panik zittern und voller Hoffnung leuchten kann."
Madama Butterfly / Oper Frankfurt / 27.05.2022 / kulturfreak.de
"mit großartiger Heather Engebretson in der Titelrolle"
Madama Butterfly / Oper Frankfurt / 22.05.2022 / musik-heute.de
"Heather Engebretson begeistert als Madama Butterfly"
Werther / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 20.09.19 / klassik-begeistert.de
"Vorbehaltlos begeistert die entzückende amerikanische Sopranistin Heather Engebretson als Sophie [...] Ihr Gesang ist glockenhell, kraftvoll in Höhen und Tiefen"
Werther / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 18.09.19 / ft.com
"Heather Engebretson is perfection as vivacious young Sophie"
Werther / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 18.09.19 / operatoday.com
"was perfectly cast [...] adolescent enough, virginal, innocent and with a rock-solid soprano"
Les contes d'Hoffmann / Deutsche Oper Berlin / 16.12.18 / bachtrack.com
"was impressive as the four Heroines"
Siegfried / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 02.10.18 / thetimes.co.uk
"Engebretson's delightful Woodbird - part puppeteer, part acrobat, cutting through the gloom with a voice of glittering brilliance"
Siegfried / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 02.10.18 / telegraph.co.uk
"terrific representations of the [...] Woodbird (an impishly acrobatic Heather Engebretson)"
Siegfried / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 01.10.18 / theguardian.com
"Engebretson's acrobatic Woodbird wove a fine thread of light through the prevailing gloom"
Siegfried / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 01.10.18 / origin-www.whatsonstage.com
"His relationship with the fragile, stratospheric Woodbird of Heather Engebretson is an especially touching partnership of opposites"
Siegfried / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 30.09.18 / bachtrack.com
"Engebretson deserves some sort of special prize for singing Woodbird phrases while actually doing backflips in a harness, suspended high above the stage"
Siegfried / Royal Opera House Covent Garden / 29.09.18 / musicomh.com
"Engebretson is an exceptionally accomplished Woodbird, bringing precision and nuance to every note"
War Requiem / Nationaltheater Mannheim / 24.04.18 / Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung
"überragend gestaltet[]: wunderbar rein und attraktiv leuchtend, in hoch gespannter Intensität"
Così fan tutte / Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden / 04.11.15 / deropernfreund.de
"Zum Niederknien schön"
News

New Years in Milano, Berlin and Luzern
No New Year's Eve without Beethoven 9 !! Heather Engebretson and Moritz Kallenberg spend the turn of the year in Milan - together with the Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro Sinfonico di Milano under Thomas Guggeis they sing the 9th in concerts in Milan and Lucerne. At the same time, Marina Prudenskaya takes on the mezzo part in a top-class cast of the Ninth at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden under Daniel Barenboim.With the same work, Moritz Kallenberg then goes on to the Theater Magdeburg, where he greets the new year again in two concerts under conductor Anna Skryleva.
more about Marina Prudenskaya
more about Moritz Kallenberg
Media
Images
Photo: Aaron Cawley
Download available

Photo: Aaron Cawley
Download available

Photo: Aaron Cawley
Download available

Photo: Aaron Cawley

Photo: Aaron Cawley

Photo: Aaron Cawley

Photo: Aaron Cawley

Photo: Rebecca Fay
Download available

Photo: Rebecca Fay
Download available

Photo: Karl & Monika Förster

Photo: Bill Cooper

Photo: Paul Leclaire

Photo: Karl & Monika Forster
Video

- Sophie's aria at 58:21
Click here for the Facebook site of Heather Engebretson:
www.facebook.com/...