Michelle Ryan
soprano
© Kurt Sneddon
The Australian soprano Michelle Ryan is appearing at Oper Frankfurt for the first time, stepping in at very short notice to sing 4th Maid in our new production of Elektra. She is a member of the Südwest Rundfunk's Vocal Ensemble. Winning a German Australia Opera Grant enabled her to join Hessen's Staatstheater in Wiesbaden in 2020/21 and 2021/22, where she sang roles including Musetta (La Bohème), Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro), Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia), the Forest Bird (Siegfried), Helmwige (Die Walküre) and Aksinja (Lady Macbeth von Mzensk). Her roles there last season included the Soul in Jörg Widmann's Babylon, Mascha in Pique Dame, Sophie in Werther, Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and 4th Maid (Elektra). She studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and then private opera academies in Weimar and Berlin. Her repertoire includes Despina (Così fan tutte), Clorinda (La Cenerentola), Frasquita (Carmen), Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos). She also sang Zerlina at the Prague Summer Nights Festival, Adele in Die Fledermaus with the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra (Cuskelly School of Music Summer Programme) and Suor Genovieffa (Suor Angelica) in an Australian Pacific Opera production. In 2019 she reached the finals for a Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship and won prizes at the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation Bel Canto Award.