Michaela Schuster is one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of our time – celebrated for her great stage presence, vocal expressiveness and dramatic intensity.

At the beginning of the 2026/27 season, Michaela Schuster will appear as soloist in Mahler's Symphony No. 2, first with the hr-Sinfonieorchester under the direction of Philippe Jordan and subsequently with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Jaap van Zweden. Opera engagements will take the mezzo-soprano to venues including Oper Graz, where she will sing Klytämnestra in Strauss's Elektra .

Highlights of past seasons include her Herodias in Michieletto's new production of Strauss's Salome at the Palau de les Arts Valencia, Klytämnestra at the San Francisco Opera under the musical direction of Eun Sun Kim, her signature role of the Nurse ( Die Frau ohne Schatten ) at the Staatsoper unter den Linden Berlin and in the new production at Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam (directed by Katie Mitchell, conducted by Marc Albrecht) as well as Herodias (Salome) at Opernhaus Zürich under the baton of Simone Young.
Michaela Schuster's extensive repertoire includes key roles in the dramatic mezzo-soprano repertoire, including Ortrud ( Lohengrin ), Fricka ( Das Rheingold , Die Walküre ), Waltraute ( Götterdämmerung ), the Nurse ( Die Frau ohne Schatten ), Madame de Croissy ( Les Dialogues des Carmélites ), Knusperhexe and Mother ( Hansel and Gretel ), Herodias ( Salome ), Clairon ( Capriccio ), Marie ( Wozzeck ), as well as Zia Principessa and Zita ( Il trittico ).
She regularly performs at the state operas in Berlin, Munich and Vienna, at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, at London's Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Zurich Opera, the Teatro Real Madrid, and the San Francisco Opera. With her interpretation of the Klytämnestra (Elektra) Michaela Schuster made her critically acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in New York in the 2017/18 season. Her Nurse (Die Frau ohne Schatten) at the Salzburg Festival and her Kundry (Parsifal) at the Salzburg Easter Festival – both under the musical direction of Christian Thielemann – are among the outstanding highlights of her career.
Michaela Schuster's wide-ranging concert repertoire encompasses major works including Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Verdi's Messa da Requiem , Mahler's symphonies and songs, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder , as well as Berg's Seven Early Songs and Altenberg Lieder . She has given recitals at venues including London's Wigmore Hall and the Schubertiade Hohenems; her song recital CD, Morgen (Oehms Classics), has received numerous awards. Concert engagements have taken Michaela Schuster to, among others, the Vienna, Hamburg, and Bamberg Symphony Orchestras, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Alte Oper Frankfurt and Oper Frankfurt.
The artist regularly collaborates with renowned conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Daniel Barenboim, Simone Young, Sebastian Weigle, Franz Welser-Möst, Marc Albrecht, Philippe Jordan and Semyon Bychkov, as well as with directors such as David McVicar, Robert Wilson, Richard Jones, Stefan Herheim, Peter Konwitschny, David Alden, Andreas Kriegenburg, Claus Guth and Christof Loy.
In addition to her international stage career, she continues to dedicate herself to her teaching activities as a professor of singing at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
2026/27
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