Artist of the Week: Gabriela Scherer

Swiss Soprano Makes her Role Debut as Tosca

By Francisco Salazar

Tosca is a dream role for almost every soprano. It is a role where the diva gets to act and sing gorgeous lines as well as bring a number of complex emotions to the stage. It is also an opera that is action-driven like no other and features THE moment when the soprano gets to kill the baritone on stage. And this week Gabriela Scherer will make her dream come true earlier than expected.

The soprano will perform her first Tosca at the Theater Dortmund in a new production by Nikolaus Habjan three times, once in October, then in November and December. It will also mark her house debut. What will make this first Tosca even more special is that Scherer will sing her December performance with her husband Michael Volle. As she noted, “I can’t wait for this very special event,  a performance at the Theater Dortmund with my husband Michael Volle on my side as Scarpia in a fantastic new Tosca production. Not a true love story like ‘Holländer’ or ‘Arabella’ but it’s definitely gonna be so much fun to work again with one of the best Scarpias I’ve ever heard in my life… I really can’t wait for that moment.”

Over the past years, Scherer has cemented herself as one of the most exciting rising lyric sopranos of her generation performing at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Semperoper Dresden, Paris Opera, Hessische Staatstheater Wiesbaden, and Oper Leipzig, among others. Her repertoire has grown over the years singing the works of Verdi, Strauss, Gluck, Mozart, and Wagner.

This season will also see the soprano make her long-awaited role debut as Elsa in a new production of Wagner’s “Lohengrin,” at the Oper Leipzig and she will also perform in a production of “Das Rheingold” with the company. She will also perform Rossini‘s Petite Messe Solenelle in her home country of Zurich.

Recordings 

Here the soprano performing excerpts from “Tosca,” “The Flying Ducthman” and “Arabella.”

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