German soprano Ricarda Merbeth is one of the leading singers in her field and is in demand worldwide as an interpreter of Wagner and Strauss.

In the 2025/26 season, she appears in the title roles of Elektra at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki and of Salome at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, and performs Kundry in Parsifal at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl.

In the last three years, Ricarda Merbeth sang Elektra at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Wiener Staatsoper and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Salome at the Teatro San Carlo, Brünnhilde (Der Ring des Nibelungen) at the Semperoper Dresden, the Vienna State Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin, Isolde (Tristan und Isolde) in Valencia and at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) at Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Staatsoper Hamburg and Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Brünnhilde (Götterdämmerung) at the Teatro Real de Madrid, Turandot at the Spring Festival in Tokyo, Ortrud (Lohengrin) in Bologna, Kundry with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Färberin (Die Frau ohne Schatten) at the Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, Schönberg’s Gurrelieder at the Sydney Opera House, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Staatskapelle in Dresden.

Ricarda Merbeth has sung at literally all major opera stages worldwide, such as the Bavarian State Opera, La Scala Milan, Opéra National de Paris, Gran Teatre del Liceu, La Monnaie in Brussels and the Sydney Opera House.

After studying at the Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music in Leipzig, she began her career in Magdeburg and Weimar. In 1999, she made her debut as Marzelline in Fidelio at the Vienna State Opera and was a member of the ensemble until 2005, singing roles including Contessa, Donna Anna, Pamina, Fiordiligi, Chrysothemis, Elisabeth, Eva, Irene, Elsa, Marschallin and Sieglinde. She achieved her international breakthrough in 2004 with the role of Daphne by Richard Strauss. The artist is still associated with the Vienna State Opera through regular guest engagements. In 2001, she was honoured with the Eberhard Waechter Medal and in 2010 she was appointed Austrian Kammersängerin. Other milestones in her career during this period were engagements at the Bayreuth Festival: in 2000 in Jürgen Flimm’s Ring as Freia and Gutrune, from 2002 to 2005 and in 2007 as Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), and from 2013 to 2018 she sang the role of Senta.

Ricarda Merbeth has worked with conductors including Simone Young, Philippe Augin, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Frank Beermann, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-whun Chung, Christoph von Dohnányi, Dan Ettinger, Daniele Gatti, Edward Gardner, Thomas Guggeis, Marek Janowski, Mariss Jansons, Philippe Jordan, Vladimir Jurowski, Fabio Luisi, Ingo Metzmacher, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Seiji Ozawa, Kirill Petrenko, Roberto Rizzi-Brignoli, Donald Runnicles, Pinchas Steinberg, Christian Thielemann and Franz Welser-Möst.
The following directors have accompanied her career: Daniele Abbado, Philippe Arlaud, Sven-Eric Bechtholf, Calixto Bieto, Nicolas Brieger, Robert Carsen, Luigi De Angelis, Michael Fau, Jürgen Flimm, Kasper Holten, Nicolas Joel, Günter Krämer, Marco Arturo Marelli, Mario Martone, Alex Ollé, Charles Roubaud, Otto Schenk, Matthias von Stegmann, Achim Thorwald, Katharina Wagner and Krzysztof Warlikowski.

She has developed her current most important roles, including Isolde, Brünnhilde, Senta, Elektra, the Dyer’s Wife, Ortrud and Turandot, in terms of vocal technique and interpretation in recent years with Prof. Ks. Wolfgang Millgramm in Berlin.

October 2025

[Photos by Mirko Jörg Kellner]