Heidi Stober
Biography
Stunning audiences with her sterling lyric voice and incisive stage personality, soprano Heidi Stober has established herself as a house favourite at leading companies on both sides of the Atlantic. Since her critically acclaimed debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the autumn of 2008, Heidi has cultivated a long-standing relationship with the company, with recent roles including Donna Elvira Don Giovanni , Micaela Carmen, Marguerite Faust, Adina L’elisir d’amore, and Liu Turandot .
Heidi opened the 2021/22 season as Mother/Waitress 2/Spinx 1 in Turnage’s Greek at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she also sings Donna Clara in Zemlinksy’s Der Zwerg. Other highlights of the season include Micaela Carmen for Houston Grand Opera and Fiordiligi Così fan tutte for the Semperoper Dresden. On the concert platform, she performs Haydon’s Creation Mass with Music of the Baroque in Chicago, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in Hannover with the NDR Radiophilharmonie, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at the Grand Teton Music Festival and Bach’s Mass in B minor , St John Passion and St Matthew Passion at the 2022 Oregon Bach Festival. Looking further ahead, she will sing Blanche Les Dialogues des Carmélites and reprise the roles of Zdenka Arabella and Musetta La bohéme , returning to San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, as well as making her house debut at the Teatro Real, Madrid.
During the curtailed 2020/21 and 2019/20 seasons, Heidi appeared as Despina Così fan tutte for the Metropolitan Opera, Gretel for San Francisco Opera and Despina for Staatsoper Hamburg. She also performed a La Traviata and Carmen Opera Highlights concert and selected songs from Chants d'Auvergne by Canteloube with Sir Donald Runnicles at the Grand Teton Music Festival. Other recent appearances include Zdenka Arabella and Angelica Orlando for San Francisco Opera, Dalinda Ariodante for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Antigone in Enescu’s Oedipe for Dutch National Opera (house debut) and a return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Pamina, Micaëla and Donna Elvira. Other concert appearances included Stravinsky’s Cantata for the LA Phil cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen and Mahler Symphony No. 4 for the Grand Teton Music Festival.
Heidi made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the 2011/12 season as Gretel Hansel and Gretel conducted by Robin Ticciati, returning to the company in recent years again as Gretel, Pamina Die Zauberflöte , Una voca dal cielo Don Carlos and Oscar Un ballo in maschera . Heidi also holds strong relationships with San Francisco Opera, where she has performed Norina in Laurent Pelly’s production of Don Pasquale , Magnolia Showboat, Oscar Un ballo in maschera, Johanna Sweeney Todd , Nannetta Falstaff, Atalanta Xerxes, and Susanna Le nozze di Figaro, and with Houston Grand Opera, where she has performed Cleopatra Giulio Cesare, Susanna Le nozze di Figaro, Musetta La bohème, Atalanta Xerxes, Miss Thompson/Helen Milla/Adelaide Mills in the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s The House without a Christmas Tree, Drusilla L’incoronazione di Poppea and Norina Don Pasquale, and with Santa Fe Opera, where her roles have included Sandrina La finta giardiniera , La Folie Platée , Tigrane Radamisto, Musetta La bohème , Zdenka Arabella and Ada in the world premiere of Theodore Morrison’s Oscar . Other notable operatic engagements include Valencienne The Merry Widow at the Lyric Opera of Chicago conducted by Sir Andrew Davies and Ada in Theodore Morrison’s Oscar for Opera Philadelphia, title role Semele for Garsington Opera, title role Alcina , Micaëla Carmen and Adina L’elisir d’amore for Semperoper Dresden, and for the Wiener Staatsoper.
Highlights on the concert platform include Messiah with the New York Philharmonic, Mozart Requiem and the world premiere of Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 4 conducted by Gustavo Dudamel for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mahler Symphony No. 4 with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart, Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Oslo Philharmonic and with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Baltimore Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Brahms Requiem with the Houston Symphony; Handel Messiah with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Carmina Burana with the Houston Ballet, Mahler Symphony No. 4 with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, and a solo recital at Carnegie Hall.
Heidi Stober’s professional training took place at the Houston Grand Opera Studio, and she holds degrees from Lawrence University and the New England Conservatory.
Image Credit: Simon Pauly
"Stober's instrument is the type of distinctly American lyric soprano that makes the rest of the world listen."
— Opera News: One to Watch–November 2018