"Poised to become the world's reigning Salome, with any company lucky enough to get her"
Biography
Since her operatic debut in 2004 in the role of Turandot at the Malmö Opera in Sweden, Swedish-American soprano, Erika Sunnegårdh has established herself as one of the leading high dramatic sopranos in the world.
Feeling particularly at home with the music of Strauss, Verdi and Puccini, she has sung Salome with the Welsh National Opera, the Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona and with Florentine Opera in Milwaukee; Tosca at Nashville Opera, Turandot with the Metropolitan Opera and Norrlandsoperan in Sweden (the Berio-ending); Abigaille in Nabucco at Teater Hedeland, Denmark.
Upcoming heroines include Verdi’s Lady Macbeth at the Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper and Glyndebourne Festival; Tosca at the Deutche Oper Berlin and Oper Frankfurt; and Chrysotemis in Elektra at the Grand Theatre de Geneve.
Other particularly successful interpretations include Leonore in Fidelio at Oper Frankfurt, the Metropolitan Opera and at the Florentine Opera; Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer with Atlanta Opera, and Paulina in the world premiere of Jonas Forssell’s Death and the Maiden in Malmö. In Wagner’s Die Walküre, Ms. Sunnegårdh has sung Helmwige (Aix-en-Provence/Salzburg) and Gerhilde (Met Tour/Japan).
In concert she has performed with the Auckland Philharmonic, Danish Radio Sinfonietta, Danish Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Malmö Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Milwaukee Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, and the percussion ensemble Kroumata; singing repertore incuding the Verdi Requiem, Rossini Stabat Mater, Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as well as opera in concert and newly commissioned works.
Erika has had the pleasure of working with conductors such as Marco Armiliato, Giordano Bellincampi, Semyon Bychkov, Paolo Carignani, Myung Wun Chung, James Conlon, Andrew Davis, Andreas Delfs, Gustavo Dudamel, Christoff Eschenbach, Adam Fischer, Lothar Koenigs, Fabio Luisi, Alan Gilbert, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Simon Rattle, Thomas Søndergaard, Mario Venzago and Steven White.
Prior to embarking on an operatic career, Ms Sunnegårdh spent a considerable amount of time on both the contemporary and recital repertoire. Erika performed songs and chamber music by Argento, Berkeley, Birtwistle, Dallapiccola, Diamond, Harbison, Henze, Messiaen, Bruce Saylor, Howard Fredricks, and also song cycles written for her by Hiromi Abe and Ronald Roseman. In the recital repertoire she is particularly drawn to German, Spanish, Swedish, and American composers, and hopes to be able to continue exploring the more intimate setting of recital hall performance.
During her education she attended the Israel Vocal Arts Institute, Tanglewood Music Center, the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies, The International Institute of Vocal Arts, as well as the undergraduate program at the Manhattan School of Music; all on scholarship.
In 1999 Erika completed her Master of Arts degree at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College after two profoundly inspiring and healing years there – an experience to which she credits much of her present success.
Ms. Sunnegårdh is a recipient of the annual Cultural Award of the American Scandinavian Society, for the promotion of Scandinavian Culture in the United States. In 1999 she founded In time with Music, a community outreach program which benefited hundreds of public school children in Queens, New York.