Christiane Karg

Introduction

Born in Feuchtwangen, Bavaria, Christiane Karg studied singing at the Salzburg Mozarteum and at the Music Conservatory in Verona. She is a member of the ensemble of the Frankfurt Opera where her roles include Susanna, Musetta, Pamina, Servilia, Zdenka (Arabella), the title role of La Calisto. She returns to Frankfurt this season to sing Mélisande in a new Claus Guth production of Pelleas and Mélisande and for her role debut as Adèle (Die Fledermaus). 

In 2006 she made her auspicious debut at the Salzburg Festival and has returned to sing Amor/Orfeo ed Euridice with Riccardo Muti and Zerlina/Don Giovanni with Yannick Nezet-Seguin. 

She is a regular guest at the Theater an der Wien where she has sung Ismene/Mitridate and Telaire/Castor and Pollux. She will return this season to sing Hero/Beatrice et Benedict. At the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich she has sung Ighino/Palestrina, at the Komische Oper Berlin, Musetta/La bohème and Norina/Don Pasquale, and at the Opera de Lille, Anne Trulove/The Rakes Progress. In 2010/11 she sang Poppea/L’incoronazione di Poppea with Glyndebourne Touring Opera. She will make her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival this season singing the role of Aricie in Hippolyte et Aricie.

A prestigious concert singer, Christiane Karg has recently appeared with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus Wien, Daniel Harding and the Dresden Staatskapelle, Yannick Nézet-Séguim and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Marek Janowski and the OSR, and Laurence Equilbey at the Salzburg Festival. She has also sung with Emmanuel Krivine in Paris, Josep Pons in Madrid, Paul McCreesh in London and Paris (Haydn’s Seasons), Jonathan Cohen and Les Arts Florissants in Paris, and Thomas Hengelbrock for the opening of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (Solveig/Peer Gynt).

Her concert engagements this season include the Salzburg Easter Festival with Christian Thielemann and the Dresden Staatskapelle (Brahms Requiem), the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra and Mariss Jansons in Tokyo (Beethoven 9) and Daniel Harding in Munich (Schumann Faustszenen), the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Mahler 4), the RSO Wien and Cornelius Meister at the Vienna Konzerthaus (Brahms Requiem), and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott on tour in Spain (Mahler 4).

Christiane Karg is a committed and distinguished recitalist and has made excellent recital debuts at the Vienna Musikverein, Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, Wigmore Hall and Edinburgh Festival. Other recent appearances include the Mozarteum Salzburg, Philharmonie Essen, Philharmonie Köln, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and Innsbruck. In 2012/13 she will make recital debuts at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Wien, Oper Frankfurt, and Musikfest Stuttgart.


For an up-to-date biography, please contact Gavin Bates

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Schedule

Ernst Deutsch Theater, HAMBURG

 

Programme

HANDEL Aci, Galatea e Polifemo
Jonathan Cohen, conductor
Elbipolis Barockorchester Hamburg
Acis: Christiane Karg (soprano)
Galatea: TBC
Polifemo: Christopher Purves (bass)
Mezzo: Hilary Summers.

Ernst Deutsch Theater, HAMBURG

 

Programme

HANDEL Aci, Galatea e Polifemo
Jonathan Cohen, conductor
Elbipolis Barockorchester Hamburg
Acis: Christiane Karg (soprano)
Galatea: TBC
Polifemo: Christopher Purves (bass)
Mezzo: Hilary Summers.

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Press

Berlioz

Béatrice et Bénédict - April 2013

Theater an der Wien

The excellent lyric soprano Christiane Karg sings beautifully in Héro’s aria, unruffled by the physical busyness, and makes a bittersweet moment of the duo-nocturne George Loomis, NY Times, 23 April 2013
Schnippisch sind sie alle, mehr noch als Ernman die Héro der Christiane Karg. Wunderbar ihr Piano sowie die Leichtigkeit und Intensität ihres Soprans. Diese Héro ist eine gefühls- und selbstsichere junge Frau, die Berlioz' Sommernachtstraum sowohl in den erotischen wie auch in den eingedunkelten Momenten grandios erfüllt Reinhard J. Brembeck, üddeutsche Zeitung, 19.4.2013

Recital - February 2013

Oper Frankfurt

Ein edles, ein hochgestimmtes Bild der Frau wurde dem Frankfurter Publikum also beschert von einer Sängerin, die gerade erst in der Neu-Inszenierung von Claude Debussys Oper Pelléas et Melisande geglänzt hatte in der Rolle des somnambulen, rätselhaften weiblichen Wesens aus dem Wald.

Jetzt erwies sich Kargs in gedecktem Register in großer Homogenität zu weiten Vokalzügen befähigter Sopran als ideal für den konzentrierten Ausdruck des Weiblichkeits-Charakters dieses Abends, wie er von Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss und Hugo Wolf sowie Camille Saint-Saëns, Henri Duparc und Reynaldo Hahn vermittelt wurde.

Bernhard Uske, Frankfurter Rundschau, 14 February 2013

Debussy

Pelléas et Mélisande – November 2012

Oper Frankfurt

There was enthusiastic applause for Christiane Karg and Christian Gerhaher who sang and played the impossible lovers brilliantly. It is a smart, modern interpretation, especially when played and sung so convincingly by Christiane Karg… her multifaceted lyric soprano and the splendour of Gerhaher’s baritone make the evening an unforgettable experience. Darmstaedter Echo, 6 November 2012
Christiane Karg as Mélisande is the equal of Gerhaher as Pelleas …so true in her expression of every sound and every dynamic as if the role was written for her girlish, tender, yet clear and bright voice. Monika Beer, Fraenkischer Tag, 7 November 2012
Mélisande is portrayed by the brilliant young-soprano Christiane Karg, a gorgeous, gifted singer and actress. Together, Karg and Gerhaher are a perfect couple… Eleonore Büning, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 November 2012
The clear soprano of the delicate Christiane Karg… Olga Lappo-Danilewski, Gießener Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 November 2012
There were well- deserved bravos for the magical, elusive, enduring Mélisande of Christiane Karg… this is a first Mélisande on a world scale. Landshuter Zeitung / Straubinger Tagblatt, November 2012
Another Frankfurt casting coup is Christiane Karg. In this fragile Mélisande, everything is audible and visible: the girlish tenderness, the bittersweet, futile determination… Muenchner Merkur, 6 November 2012
The capricious and mysterious Mélisande is sung by Christiane Karg, her soprano embedded lovingly into Debussy’s language… Klaus Ackermann, Offenbach-Post, 6 November 2012
Christiane Karg (Mélisande) and Christian Gerhaher (Pelléas) find a sure and stylish balance between declamation and singing, with an awareness of Debussy’s language that only two genuine singers of song can bring. Karg is a wonderfully somnambulistic Mélisande with her delicate, fragile soprano, delivering passion, vulnerability and disunity in equally convincing measure. Rhein Necka Zeitung Heidelberg, November 2012
In the graceful Christine Karg as fragile Mélisande and in the delicate Christian Gerhaher as enchanted, eccentric Pelléas, Claus Guth finds the best possible singers to play the soul mates: she with bell-clear soprano, he with excellent, beautiful enunciation, both of them bathing in the impressionistic tones of the orchestra... Ursula Böhmer, SWR 2 Journal am Morgen, 5 November 2012
...it would be difficult to fault Karg or Gerhaher.  The soprano certainly conjured up the necessary girlish purity in singing of exquisite clarity. Hugo Shirley, Opera, Feburary 2013

Cavalli

La Calisto – December 2011

Oper Frankfurt

The undisputed star of the evening is Christiane Karg who is second to none as Calisto - she unites quiet suffering and blazing passion with her warm soprano... Bettina Kneller, Main-Echo Aschaffenburg, 2 January 2012
Especially touching in the title role is the young Christiane Karg, whose voice has a clear, bright and warm timbre and whose passionate singing is as convincing as her suffering and sacrifice Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, Frankfurter Rundschau, 26 December 2011

Recordings

WENN ICH EIN VÖGLEIN WÄR

Eric Schneider, Klavier (Nr. 2)
Helmut Deutsch, Klavier
(Nr. 17, with Stella Doufexis)
(Nr. 19, with Stella Doufexis and Klaus Florian Vogt)
Sony