Hedwig Fassbender

Hedwig Fassbender (born October 23, 1954 in Iversheim ) is a German opera singer ( mezzo-soprano ) and vocal teacher.

Life

Hedwig Fassbender first studied piano and school music in Cologne and then began her singing studies with Ernst Haefliger in Munich . During her training, she won the Hugo Wolf competition in Vienna and the Mozart Festival competition in Würzburg. She began her career at the opera houses in Freiburg and Basel , where she was permanently engaged for five years. During this time she sang important mezzo-soprano roles such as Cherubino, Octavian, Idamante and Nicklausse.

Since 1987 she has been working as a freelance artist and has sung as a guest in Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, ​​Vienna, Hamburg and Berlin, among others. In the meantime she switched to the dramatic mezzo and sang roles like Carmen or Fricka in the Ring des Nibelungen . When she took over Isolde at the Saarbrücken State Theater in 2001, she expanded her repertoire and since then has also sung a number of soprano roles (Marie in Wozzeck , Foreign Princess in Rusalka , Marschallin in Rosenkavalier , Ariane in Ariane et Barbe-Bleue and others). In 2003 she received a nomination for singer of the year for her interpretation of Sieglinde ( Die Walküre ) in Liège . Today Hedwig Fassbender is best known as Herodias ( Salome ) and Kostelnicka / Küsterin ( Jenůfa ) .

Since 1999 she has been teaching as a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main . Since 2015 she has been in charge of the Zurich Opera Studio (IOS) and works with the singers of the opera studios of the Paris Opera and the Bolshoi Theater . Her graduates include Björn Bürger , Sebastian Kohlhepp, Katharina Magiera, Kateryna Kasper, Nohad Becker, Stine Fischer, Ruzan Mantashyan, Jana Baumeister, Keith Stonum, Amadeu Tasca, Gurgen Baveyan, Esther Dierkes and Linda Sommerhage.

Hedwig Fassbender has two daughters: the dancer Katharina Wiedenhofer and the actress Magdalena Wiedenhofer .

Web links

• Homepage of Hedwig Fassbender
• Hedwig Fassbender at Operabase (engagements and dates)