Hanna Schwarz

After studying psychology, Hanna Schwarz began her vocal training at the Hanover Academy of Music, where she also made her operatic debut as Sigrune in Wagner’s Die Walküre. After winning a singing competition in Berlin, she was engaged by the Hamburg State Opera.

In 1975, she made her Bayreuth debut, where she achieved an international breakthrough as Fricka in the Chéreau/Boulez Ring. In the following years, Hanna Schwarz also performed at Bayreuth in the roles of Erda, Brangäne, and Waltraute.

An international career followed, leading her to the world’s major stages, collaborating with renowned conductors. She participated in Ring productions in San Francisco, at the Metropolitan Opera under James Levine, at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich under Wolfgang Sawallisch, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in Hamburg, and at Covent Garden under Bernard Haitink. The Salzburg Festival engaged her for Parsifal and The Magic Flute under Herbert von Karajan, followed by Lulu (Geschwitz) and Salome (Herodias). She also excelled in the roles of Octavian, Orpheus, Carmen (in a Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production with Placido Domingo), the Nurse (Die Frau ohne Schatten), and Klytämnestra (Elektra). Her interpretation of the latter role earned her the title of “Singer of the Year” in 1997.

Hanna Schwarz also excels on the concert stage. She has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Europe’s and America’s most prestigious venues, such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Berlin and Cologne Philharmonies, the Vienna Musikverein, and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, to name but a few.

She has also participated in numerous radio concerts and recordings, performing Das Lied von der Erde, Gurrelieder, symphonies and lieder by Gustav Mahler, as well as Verdi’s Requiem under the baton of conductors such as Böhm, Ozawa, Levine, Mehta, Sinopoli, Maazel, Sawallisch, Dohnanyi, and Bernstein. The artist has also distinguished herself through her interpretations of contemporary music, performing works by Maurizio Kagel, Hans Werner Henze, Pierre Boulez, Alfred Schnittke, and Leonard Bernstein.

Her recent projects include new productions of Dialogues of the Carmelites and The Queen of Spades in Basel, concerts of The Threepenny Opera in Vienna, London, Paris, and Hamburg, Salome in Valencia, Das Rheingold in Seville, Salome at the New National Theatre Tokyo, and a new production of Jenůfa at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

At the 2011 Salzburg Easter Festival, Hanna Schwarz performed the role of Herodias in Salome under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle, as well as new productions of Die Soldaten at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Zurich Opera, and Jenůfa and Salome also in Zurich. Her other engagements include new productions of Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress and Peter Grimes at the Theater an der Wien, Daphne in Basel and at the Hamburg State Opera, Jenůfa at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Berlin State Opera, and the Bavarian State Opera, as well as Eugene Onegin at the Bastille in Paris and Káťa Kabanová in Hamburg. She reprised Eugene Onegin also in Hamburg.