Charlotte Hellekant

Highly acclaimed for her magnetic stage presence and vocal versatility, Charlotte Hellekant’s gripping portrayals of characters as diverse as Carmen, Cornelia, Varvara or Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, have made her a first choice for many of Europe’s major opera directors. In a stunning new production by the Sasha Waltz Company last season, Charlotte gained widespread recognition for her creation of Murasame, a leading role in the world-premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s new opera, Matsukaze, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado.

The current season sees Charlotte Hellekant debut with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, in Mahler’s Symphony No 8, and further collaborate with Toshio Hosokawa on his next commission The Raven, to be presented in Brussels, Luxembourg and Amsterdam with Ensemble Lucilin. A further new commission, Erik XIV by Mikko Heiniö, will bring Charlotte to Turku Opera as part of the 2011 City of Culture celebrations.

Alongside her busy operatic career, Charlotte Hellekant is a highly acclaimed and versatile concert performer and recognised specifically as a fine exponent of Mahler; she has worked with many notable conductors and orchestras, including Christoph von Dohnányi and the Philharmonia Orchestra at the BBC Proms, Christoph Eschenbach and the NDR Orchester, Paavo Järvi with Orchestre de Paris and hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra, Mariss Jansons and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as Jukka-Pekka Saraste with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.