Heidi Melton

The young American dramatic soprano Heidi Melton has been called “the Wagnerian voice we have been waiting for since Flagstad and Nilsson” (La Presse), and a voice that is “big, gleaming and tonally resplendent” (San Francisco Chronicle).

This season she makes her role début as Brünnhilde in new productions of Die Walküre and Siegfried, both at Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. She also débuts with the London Symphony Orchestra and Berlin Philharmonic in Ligeti’s Le grand macabre under Simon Rattle as well as with Houston Grand Opera as Gutrune in Götterdämmerung. Recent appearances have included her Vienna Philharmonic début singing Brünnhilde’s “Immolation Scene” from Götterdämmerung under Valery Gergiev, her New York Philharmonic début with Alan Gilbert in Strauss Lieder and her English National Opera début in Tristan and Isolde conducted by Edward Gardner. She is a favourite of audiences in Berlin, where she has been seen at the Deutsche Oper in Der Ring des Nibelungen under both Simon Rattle and Donald Runnicles. In Berlin she has also sung Elsa in Lohengrin, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, Fata Morgana in Love for Three Oranges, and Gertrude in Hänsel und Gretel.

Melton is the recipient of many prestigious awards and prizes including the George London Foundation’s George London / Kirsten Flagstad Memorial Award, José Iturbi Competition, Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, third place in the Belvedere Competition, national semi-finalist at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and winner of the Mario Lanza Competition.