Cornelia Kallisch

The alto Cornelia Kallisch was born in Marbach on the Neckar. She studied under Josef Metternich, among others, and completed her training at the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Endowed with a voice that is considered perfect for the German repertoire, she has acquired an excellent reputation for her renditions of Wagner, Strauss and Mahler. With a permanent engagement at the Zürich Opera House, she has had a chance to play a number of the best alto roles in the repertoire, including Octavian in Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, the witch in Dvorák’s Rusalka and Kabanicha in Katja Kabanova. She has also played the part of Kundry both in Zürich and Brussels and made her first major appearance in the USA in the role of Brangäne in a concert performance of Tristan und Isolde conducted by Lorin Maazel in Pittsburgh. Another of her favourite roles is that of Judith in Bartók’s Count Bluebeard’s Castle, which she has sung both on stage in Zürich and in concert performances with the Orchestre de Paris, the Philharmonia Orchestra London and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. This was also the part with which she made her debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall, this time with the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Christoph von Dohnanyi. Contemporary music also forms an important part of her repertoire and it was this that brought her the role of the Queen in a highly acclaimed production of Heinz Hollinger’s psychodrama, Schneewittchen, as well as a part in the Brussels premiere of Boesmann’s A Winter’s Tale. The more recent highlights of her career in Zürich have included new productions of Lulu, Rheingold, Arabella, Walküre and Götterdämmerung.