Barbara Zechmeister
Soprano
© Marcus Boman
Barbara Zechmeister has been singing at Oper Frankfurt since 1996, and the title of Kämmersängerin was bestowed upon her in 2011. During the 2024/25 season she repeated her portrayals of the Woman with a Normal Nose, Pernille and a female forced labourer in revivals of Rimsky-Korsakov's Christmas Eve (get the DVD), Nielsen's Masquerade and Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and went to the Teatro Real in Madrid to sing a Fortune Teller in Strauss' Arabella. These were preceded by roles including a Landlady in a new production of Zemlinsky's George the Dreamer and a Maid in Elektra. During the 2025/26 season roles include a Neighbour in the new production of Fortner's Bluthochzeit / Blood Wedding. Other recent roles have included Gertrud (the mother) in Hänsel und Gretel and a Fortune-teller in Arabella, Despina, a role she made her own in Loy's production of Così fan tutte, which won the 2008 FAUST Theater Prize, La Badessa in Suor Angelica, Mrs Gobineau (Menotti's The Medium), Evelyne in Křenek's Heavyweight, or the Pride of the Nation, Graumann's Wife in a wonderful new production of Schreker's Elusive Sound, the Old Baroness (Barber's Vanessa), Adelaide (Arabella), Marianne Leitmetzerin (Der Rosenkavalier), Mrs. Coyle (Britten's Owen Wingrave), the Old Woman (Weinberg's The (female) Passenger) and the Girl (Reimann's Ghost Sonata). In earlier seasons she sang many lead Mozart roles, Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Freia (Das Rheingold, get the CD & DVD! ), Marguerite (Gounod's Faust), Lady Macduff (Bloch's Macbeth), Donna Clara (Zemlinsky's The Dwarf), Grigori Frid's Anne Frank, Salud (de Falla's La vida breve / A Short Life) and Livia in the world premiere of Glanert's Caligula (get the CD!). Guest engagements have taken Barbara Zechmeister to places including Mannheim, Hannover, Stuttgart, Essen, Rouen, Lisbon and the Wexford and Bregenz festivals.