Contact
Kerstin Alt ka@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-235
Victoria Monterovm@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-237
General Management
Kerstin Alt ka@karstenwitt.com +49 30 214 594-235
Caroline Melzer: brilliant. THE STANDARD
Caroline Melzer dazzles with her “clear, broad, and bright soprano“ (Eleonore Büning FAZ) and her unusually wide repertoire, ranging from big lyrical and jugendlich-dramatic roles to Operetta divas and contemporary works written specifically for her. She studied singing with Rudolf Piernay and Vera Scherr and song interpretation with Ulrich Eisenlohr and Irwin Gage.
Her first permanent engagement took the expressive singer to the Komische Oper Berlin in 2007, where she sang numerous roles such as Contessa, Fiordiligi, Mimì, Giulietta (Tales of Hoffmann), Lisa (Queen of Spades), Lisa (The Land of Smiles), Leonore in the first version of Fidelio, and Cordelia in Aribert Reimann's Lear in the highly acclaimed new production by Hans Neuenfels. From 2010 until 2017 she was a permanent ensemble member at the Vienna Volksoper, where she sang the title roles in Rusalka and The Bartered Bride, as well as Micaela, Liù, and Sieglinde in Ring in one evening (arrangement by Loriot). In addition to her permanent engagements, Caroline Melzer made guest appearances as the First Lady at the Staatsoper Berlin and as the Merry Widow at the Festival Savonlinna, Finland; in the same role she made her Japanese debut in Tokyo in 2016. Most recently she appeared again on the stage of the Volksoper as Donna Elvira and as Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann, was heard at the Neue Oper Wien and at Müpa Budapest as Angel in Péter Eötvös' Angels in America, and debuted the role of the Armed Woman in the world premiere production of Felix Leuschner's Einbruch mehrerer Dunkelheiten at Staatstheater Kassel. She was a guest at the Munich Chamber Orchestra in 2022 with works by Schönberg and Zemlinsky. And she returns to the Ruhrtriennale after the successful world premiere of Michael Wertmüller's D • I • E in 2021 with the production Ich geh unter lauter Schatten in 2022. This will be followed by concerts with Klangforum Wien in Tokyo and Tongyeong, before she makes her role debuts in Freiburg as Agathe in Weber's Freischütz and Marie in Berg's Wozzeck.
Contemporary music is a particular focus of her work. Of great importance are her collaborations with Aribert Reimann, who set the song cycle Rilke-Fragmente and the scene of Stella (Goethe) to music for her, with Manfred Trojahn (Zwetajewa and Nietzsche Lieder), as well as with Wolfgang Rihm on the occasion of the world premiere of the Zwetajewa Lieder and most recently the Nossack Lieder at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. In addition, she has given many other world premieres of works by Emanuele Casale, Seán Doherty, Deidre Gribbin, Stefan Heucke, Bernhard Lang, Jüri Reinvere, Vladimir Tarnopolski, Steffen Schleiermacher, and Kate Whitley. She also works regularly with pianist Axel Bauni, and ensembles such as Ensemble modern, musikFabrik, and Ensemble Intercontemporain. She passionately devotes herself to the vocal works of György Kurtág: in addition to the Kafka Fragments, which she performs together with the violinist Nurit Stark (the CD of which, released on the BIS label in 2015, has been awarded the German Record Critics' Prize), she has performed many of the composer’s chamber music works with voice.
In the course of her activities as a lied and concert singer, Caroline Melzer has appeared in renowned European halls such as the Philharmonie Berlin, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Musikverein Vienna, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Auditorium Grafenegg, the Kunstzentrum deSingel Antwerpen, the Cité de la Musique Paris, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Tonhalle Zürich, the Philharmonie Essen, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, deDoelen Rotterdam, Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow, the Town Hall Birmingham, and the Liederhalle Stuttgart. The complete recording of the Schumann Lieder will be completed on the Naxos label in April 2022, on which she is featured on two CDs. Caroline Melzer has worked with conductors such as Stefan Soltesz, Peter Rundel, Péter Eötvös, Helmuth Rilling, Christoph Poppen, Friedemann Layer, Konrad Junghänel, Patrick Lange, François-Xavier Roth, Alfred Eschwé, Jac van Steen, Frieder Bernius, and Michael Sanderling.
Caroline Melzer teaches voice at the University of Music and Performing Arts Mannheim and at the Zurich University of the Arts.
Season 2022/23
György Kurtág: Kafka Fragmente
Caroline Melzer, SopranoNurit Stark, Violin
kafka-fragmente.com
The cycle of Kafka-Fragmente is the longest of the many vocal cycles by György Kurtág. It is based on prose texts from Franz Kafka's diaries and from posthumously published letters and stories. The work was begun in 1985 without a preconceived plan, completed in 1987, and premiered that same year at Witten by Adrienne Csengery and András Keller.
The texts, which range from quick jottings to sketches for stories, permit a large variety of musical settings. For the most part they possess a philosophical dimension that touches on Kafka's existential questioning, which the composer has made his own.
The work consists of forty songs organized into four parts of unequal length, although it is not possible to discern any specific purpose behind the order, which was decided after many hesitations and attempts.
As in the Lieder cycles of Schubert and Schumann, the nature of the work is that of movement rather than of architecture: the journey of a man who questions and seeks to find himself, of a life that reflects upon itself.
Philippe Albèra
A video installation of György Kurtág's Kafka-Fragmente op. 24 by Isabel Robson and Susanne Vincenz.The video camera accompanies the soprano Caroline Melzer and the violinist Nurit Stark on different places from Berlin via Poland to Russia. The East the protagonists travel, scales off the concrete locations and drifts into the imaginary. Both musicians transform to figures, once seeming to stem from real socialism once from Kafka's world.
Further programme ideas:
György Kurtág: Die Sprüche des Péter BornemiszaCombination 1: H. PurcellCombination 2: F. Schubertwith Jan Philip Schulze, pianoCM Kurtág The Sayings of Péter Bornemisza
Olivier Messiaen: Harawiwith Cédric Pescia, piano / Clara Pons, video (optional)
P. Hindemith: Das Marienlebenwith Alex Bauni, piano
Le Pierrot doublePierrot Lunaire 6 Songs by Arnold Schönberg6 Songs by Max Kowalski (arrangment: Johannes Schöllborn)
"Vocally and dramatically perfect: Caroline Melzer as the foreign princess embodying a human machine."
SWR, Bernd Künzig, 13/3/2023
"The breathtakingly difficult part of Marie between speaking,chanting and dramatic high notes is mastered by Caroline Melzer with admirable intonation."
SWR, Bernd Künzig, 28/11/2022
"Caroline Melzer appeals as Marie with lyrical warmth, but also expressive, but never forced, high notes."
nmz, Georg Rudiger, 27/11/2022
"...Caroline Melzer (...) impressed with her luminous, expansive soprano."
Münchner Merkur, Anna Schürmer, 19/3/2022
"Caroline Melzer manages this difficult role excellently, both in terms of acting and singing; time and again, she is called upon to deliver sharp, tinkling high notes, or to sing guttural harmonies and long, sustained pedal points. Leuschner has composed a great soprano role..."
nd, Berthold Seliger, 8/6/2022
"Melzer has not only an expressive stage presence, but a voice that is versatile in timbre."
Abendzeitung, Marco Frei, 19/3/22
"Caroline Melzer performed Dvořák's "Song to the Moon" from "Rusalka" with a longing, emotionally authentic intimacy coloured sensitively by the orchestra. [...] In "Un bel di vedremo" from Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" [she] forms soft, expressive cantilenas."
Klassik.com, Thomas Gehrig, 2/1/2022
"Melzer varies not only the volume, but also the proportion of head and chest voice, of speed and strength of vibrato, until the music begins to float between madness and clairvoyance."
Frankfurter Allgemeine, Jan Brachmann, 15/11/2019
“A top performance by Caroline Melzer as Angel of America, who is able to impress deeply with heavenly coloratura.”
IOCO, Marcus Haimerl, 10/10/2019
“[...] the soprano Caroline Melzer has become the 'consistent post'. With her vocal confidence and her sovereign handling of contemporary vocal music, she has made herself indispensable for the LiederWerkstatt.”
infranken.de, Thomas Ahnert, 03/07/2018
“The soprano Caroline Melzer exhibited vocal brilliance.”
nön.at, 01/01/2018
“The soloists are well tuned to each other (...) even in pairs they sound like an intimate small choir, emanating much poetry and euphony. It is a pleasure to listen to them.”
operalounge.de, Rüdiger Winter – on the Schumann-CD Vol. 10 ‘Romances, Ballads and Songs’ (Naxos 2021)
A. Dvorák: Rusalka
Volksoper Vienna
Emmerich Kálmán, Gräfin Mariza from Caroline Melzer on Vimeo.
E. Kálmán: Gräfin Mariza
A. Webern: Three Orchestral Songs
Philharmonie Berlin
R. Schumann: Lorelei
Caroline Melzer, Simon Bode, Ulrich EisenlohrNaxos, 2022
Caroline Melzer, Anke Vondung, Simon Bode, Ulrich Eisenlohr Naxos, 2021
Caroline Melzer, Nurit StarkBIS, 2015