German soprano Ricarda Merbeth is one of the leading singers of her fach, and is internationally saught-after for her interpretation of Wagner and Strauss parts.

In 1999 she made her debut as Marzelline in Fidelio at the Vienna State Opera and had a permanent engagement there until 2005. Since then, she has sung roles such as Contessa, Donna Anna, Pamina, Fiordiligi, Chrysothemis, Elisabeth, Eva, Irene, Elsa, Marschallin and Sieglinde.

A particular highlight was her Daphne in a new production at the Vienna State Opera in 2004. With this title role in Richard Strauss’ opera, Ricarda Merbeth achieved high recognition and her international career took off. To honour her successful relationship to his opera house, former director of the Vienna State Opera, Ioan Holender, awarded her the title of “Austrian Kammersängerin” in 2010.

Other highlights in her career include various engagements at the Bayreuth Festival: in 2000 in the Ring directed by Jürgen Flimm as Freia and Gutrune and from 2002 to 2005 and in 2007 as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. From 2013 to 2018 she sang the role of Senta in the production of The flying dutchman.

Since 2006 Ricarda Merbeth has been freelancing and regularly takes the major parts of her fach such as Elektra, Sieglinde (Walküre), Helena (Egyptian Helena), Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos), Marietta (Die tote Stadt), Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), Senta (The flying duchman), Leonore (Fidelio), Emilia Marty (The Makropulos Affair), Ortrud (Lohengrin), Marie (Wozzeck), Isolde (Tristan und Isolde), Goneril (Lear), Elisabeth and Venus (Tannhäuser), Brünnhilde (Siegfried, Walküre, Götterdämmerung). She guests at the internationally most important opera houses such as Hamburg State Opera, Bavarian State Opera Munich, La Scala Milan, Deutsche Oper Berlin, New National Theatre Tokyo, Opera National de Paris, Teatro Real Madrid, Dutch National Opera, and the opera houses of Toulouse, Marseille, Barcelona, Helsinki, Stockholm, Zurich, Sydney, Vienna and New York and works with renowned conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-whun Chung, Daniele Gatti, Marek Janowski, Mariss Jansons, Philippe Jordan, Fabio Luisi, Ingo Metzmacher, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Seiji Ozawa, Donald Runnicles, Pinchas Steinberg, Christian Thielemann, Constantin Trinks.

In November 2018 she made her successful debut as Elektra in Patrice Chéreau’s legendary production at La Scala in Milan and also sang the role several times at the Staatsoper Berlin.

Other important engagements in her career include Brünnhilde (Siegfried) and the Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier) in Tokyo, Isolde in Turin and Amsterdam, Leonore (Fidelio) at the Vienna State Opera and the New National Theatre Tokyo, the title roles in Elektra and Die Ägyptische Helena at La Scala Milan, the title role in Turandot at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in Marseille and Brussels, Brünnhilde (Ring) in Madrid as well as all Brünnhildes in concert performances at the Opera Bastille Paris.

Future engagements will take Ricarda Merbeth back to the Vienna State Opera, where she has been invited to sing all Brünnhildes (Ring). She will also perform all the Brünnhildes at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Further highlights of the 2022/23 season are her debuts as Ortrud (Lohengrin) and Kundry (Parsifal).