Deborah Voigt performs Wagner to Strauss, Puccini and Bernstein

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Deborah Voigt, one of the great American voices, continues her stellar international season, showing her range from Wagner and Strauss to Puccini and Bernstein. The soprano is currently singing her first Isolde in Barcelona, with the Gran Teatre del Liceu production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde running until February 20. It was her inimitable way with this iconic, ultra-demanding role that led to a 20-minute ovation at the Vienna State Opera, an event reported on CNN, and to acclaimed performances of it at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Chicago’s Lyric Opera. A week after her Isolde in Spain, Voigt makes her Zurich Opera debut, singing the title role of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (Feb 27) – an especially promising prospect if, as the New York Times claims, “Almost any Strauss role the voice of Deborah Voigt touches turns to gold!” Illustrating another side of her art, she will perform a recital in Zurich on March 15, singing material by Verdi, Strauss, and Respighi, as well as American songs by Leonard Bernstein, Amy Beach, and Ben Moore.

Voigt returns to her home stage of New York’s Metropolitan Opera on April 23 to make her house debut in a psychologically and vocally intense role: Senta in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman). Voigt sang Senta with the Met company on the road in Germany and is featured on the 1994 Sony Classical studio recording of the full opera led by James Levine (with James Morris as the Dutchman and Ben Heppner as Erik). Discussing Voigt’s performance of the role in 2005, Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer enthused: “The voice was huge, bright, and refulgent, especially at the top, and Voigt’s technique extraordinary… . The full, visceral impact of her tone when she unfurls a high B-natural and sends it spinning to the back wall is a privilege of live performance.”

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