Kateryna Kasper
Soprano - Ukraine
Stylistic versatility and authenticity of interpretation – these terms characterize the artistic agenda of the Ukrainian soprano Kateryna Kasper. A member of the Opera Frankfurt since 2014, she made her debut there already in 2011 as the FOREST BIRD in Wagner’s Siegfried. She has since performed important roles from almost all epochs in Frankfurt.
Those include SOPHIE (Der Rosenkavalier), SUSANNA (Le nozze di Figaro), PAMINA (Die Zauberflöte), TITANIA (Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream), ANTONIDA (Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar), the title role in Flotow’s MARTHA, NANNETTA (Falstaff), ORIANA (Amadigi) by G.F. Handel and ANGELICA (Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso), ANIMA in Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo by Cavalieri, as well as the world premiere of Der Goldene Drache by Péter Eötvös, who has composed the role DIE JUNGE FRAU/ DER KLEINE for Kateryna (a co-production with the Ensemble Modern Frankfurt).
She has appeared at opera festivals in Edinburgh, Bregenz, Savonlinna and Bergen, and in St. Margarethen (Austria), as well as at the Los Angeles Opera. Last season Kateryna made her role debut as BELLEZZA in Handel’s Il Trionfo at the Nationaltheater Mannheim. On tour with the B’Rock Orchestra under the leadership of René Jacobs, among others at the Liceu Barcelona and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, she gave a successful interpretation of Queen ORASIA in Telemann’s Orpheus. She sang a concert tour of the Christmas Oratorio with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the “Messiah” at the Elbphilharmonie with Holland Baroque and the NDR Vokalensemble and Mahler’s 4th Symphony and Schubert Lieder with the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra.In the current season, Kateryna makes her debut at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin with the role of ARIANNA (Vivaldi’s Il Giustino). She can also be heard at her home theater in Frankfurt as ANGELICA and ROMILDA (in Handel’s Orlando and Xerxes, respectively), GRETEL (Humperdinck Hänsel und Gretel) and ZERLINA (Mozart Don Giovanni).
Kateryna pursues an active performance schedule in song, oratorio and concert with performances in the Paris, Cologne, Moscow Philharmony, Elbphilharmonie, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, and in the Musashino Civic Cultural Hall Tokio. She appeared, amongst others, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, at the Handel Festival Karlsruhe, the Telemann Festival Magdeburg, the Grafenegg Festival (Austria). She has been working with conductors such as Ivor Bolton, Nathalie Stutzmann, Constantinos Carydis, Sebastian Weigle, Michael Schneider, Federico Maria Sardelli, Andreas Spering, Michael Hofstetter, Helmuth Rilling, Howard Griffiths, Raphaël Pichon and with chamber music partners such as the Trio Vivente, Hilko Dumno, Dmitry Ablogin, Kristin von der Goltz.
Kateryna’s debut album "Ah! If I but Knew the Way Back…" with romantic songs about childhood and fairy tales (TYXart) wasfavorable received. The disc has been recorded with Hilko Dumno at the original Steinway of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.
2022 saw CDs released with cycles by Shostakovich and Weinberg with the Trio Vivente, Weber’s Freischütz (Ännchen) with the FBO lead by René Jacobs, as well as her second Lied album “Ein süßes Deingedenken”(A Tender Memory of Thee) with songs by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn recorded with Dmitry Ablogin on a historic 1835 fortepiano.
In 2014, Kateryna won the prestigious Mirjam-Helin International Singing Competition in Helsinki. This was preceded by prices at the IVC’s-Hertogenbosch (2010), The Queen Sonja International Music Competition in Oslo (2011) and The Trude-Eipperle-Rieger-Prize for art song.
Kateryna Kasper has studied with Raisa Kolesnik in Donetsk (Ukraine), followed by studies in Nuremberg and Frankfurt with Edith Wiens and Hedwig Fassbender, where she has been supported by a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). In parallel with her “Konzertexamen”, she was a member of the young artists program of the Opera Frankfurt (“Opernstudio”) from 2012-2014. She has participated in master classes held by Ileana Cotrubaș and Margreet Honig.
