Karen Huffstodt has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in a diverse repertoire that has encompassed the leading soprano roles of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Strauss. Her performances have consistently been characterized by great intensity, an extraordinary stage appearance, and a voice that perfectly embodies the heroines she portrays on the stage.
For over the past twenty-five years, she has graced the stages of all of the leading opera houses of the world, including La Scala, the Vienna Staatsoper, Opéra National de Paris (Bastille), the Salzburg Festival, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In addition, she has performed in Germany at the Berliner Staatsoper, Hamburg State Opera, and the Semperoper in Dresden. In Italy, she has appeared at the Teatro Comunale in Florence, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Teatro Massimo, Palermo and Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania. In the U.S.A., she has sung at the The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera., Washington National Opera., Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Santa Fe Opera and the Florida Grand Opera. Other notable theaters include the Théatre Royal de La Monnaie in Brussels, plus the Opera de Lyon and Théatre du Capitole in Toulouse.
Ms. Huffstodt recently gave her role debut as Elektra in a new production at the Baadische Staatstheater in Karlsruhe. The press commented: The hour of Elektra became the hour of Karen Huffstodt. Like a blazing flame she threw herself into the mad role. She has at her disposal completely astounding vocal reserves, that leave her fresh and unspent through to the murderous climactic final scene – a fantastic, rightly celebrated accomplishment.”
Other recent engagements include appearances as Kundry in Parsifal with Placido Domingo in Washington and in Wels at the prestigious Wagner Festspiele, Katerina Ismailova in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Baltimore Opera, Chrysothemis in Elektra in Pittsburgh, Lady Billows with the Gotham Chamber Opera, the title role in Turandot with Hawaii Opera Theater, Begbick in Mahagonny in a new production at the Spoleto Festival, and Klementia in Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna in Montpellier.
A role with which she is particularly identified is Strauss’ Salome, which she has performed at the Bastille, Berliner Staatsoper, Théatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Lyon, the Vienna Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera, Hambürgische Staatsoper, the Rotterdam Festival, as well as in Genoa, Lyon, and Seoul, Korea, accompanied by such conductors as Chung, Mehta, Bychkov, Pappano, and Gerghiev. She has also recorded the rarely performed French version of Strauss’s opera (based on the original text of Oscar Wilde) under the baton of Kent Nagano for Virgin.
Other roles with which she has been identified over the years include Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (Munich, Paris, Vienna, Toulouse, Zurich, Los Angeles, Miami, and Tel-Aviv, among others), Giulia in Spontini’s La Vestale, (with which she opened the 1993 La Scala season under Riccardo Muti and recorded for Sony), the title role in Puccini’s Tosca, Sieglinde in Die Walküre in Paris, Covent Garden (with Placido Domingo) and La Scala, Chrysothemis in Elektra in Salzburg, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Washington, and Pittsburgh, Minnie in La Fanciulla del West at the Teatro Comunale in Florence, Isolde in Monte Carlo and Genoa, the title role of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mzensk at the Florence Maggio Musicale under Semyon Bychkov and at the Semperoper in Dresden, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser in Palermo, Leonore in Fidelio at the Salzburg Festival and in Bonn, Brünnhilde in Die Walküre in Toulouse and Geneva, Brünnhilde in Siegfried in Trieste, Odabella in Attila at Covent Garden, the title role in Thais (Paris, Nancy, and Toulouse), and Chrysothemis in Elektra (Salzburg, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Washington, and Pittsburgh), the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos in Nice and at the Opéra Comique in Paris, Arabella and Agatha in Der Freischütz in Catania, Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer at the Netherlands Opera, Roselinde in Die Fledermaus at the Metropolitan Opera and the prestigious New Year’s performances at the Vienna Staatsoper, and the Kaiserin in Die Frau ohne Schatten and Marie in Wozzeck at the Grand Théatre de Genève.
Miss Huffstodt is equally at home on the concert stage in repertoire which includes Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder and Hölderlin Hymnen, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, Berg’s Sieben frühe Lieder and Schönberg’s Gurrelieder, to name a few.