Christine Schäfer

Christine Schäfer (born May 3, 1965) is a German soprano. Born in Frankfurt in 1965, she studied from 1984 until 1991 at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where her teachers were Ingrid Figur and Aribert Reimann. She also followed masterclasses with Arleen Augér and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. After finishing her studies in 1992, Schäfer began singing at the opera house in Innsbruck. The next year she made her debut in the United States, singing Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier in San Francisco. In 1995 she performed to great acclaim during the Salzburger Festspiele as Lulu in Alban Berg's opera of that name, a part she would later sing at The Met and at the Glyndebourne. Other notable opera roles were Alcina at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre and Donna Anna in a production of Don Giovanni in the Palais Garnier, directed by Michael Haneke. Her repertoire contains several baroque operas, Bach cantatas, and many of the great Mozart roles, such as Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro), Pamina (The Magic Flute) and Servilia (La clemenza di Tito). But Schäfer also sings modern pieces like Pierrot Lunaire and Pli selon pli, both of which she recorded with Pierre Boulez conducting. Other recordings include Lieder by Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert's Winterreise and songs by Ernest Chausson and Claude Debussy. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.