Born in Brisbane, Australia, LISA GASTEEN studied there with Margaret Nickson, as well as at the London Opera Studio. She has won several highly acclaimed competitions, such as the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in 1991, the Advance Australia Award in 1992, and the Sydney Mayer Performing Arts Award in 2003. Gasteen is considered to be one of the leading dramatic sopranos of the opera world, singing at the world’s most important opera houses.

She made her operatic debut with the Lyric Opera Queensland. Her engagements with Opera Australia included Leonore (Fidelio), Leonora (La forza del destino), Amelia (Ballo in maschera), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), Senta (Fliegende Holländer), and the title roles in Aida and Salome.

Gasteen’s repertory also includes Isolde (Tristan und Isolde, performed at Covent Garden in 2002, as well as Stuttgart, Australia, and Paris Bastille), the title role of Elektra (performed in London in 2003 and in Cleveland under Franz Welser-Möst in 2004), Sieglinde (Walküre) at the Metropolitan Opera under James Levine, Ariadne in Berlin, as well as Tosca, the Empress, and The Dyer’s Wife (Die Frau ohne Schatten). She sang the role of Brünnhilde in the Ring cycle in Meiningen, and more recently also in Adelaide, Vienna, London, and New York.

Future engagements include performances of Brünnhilde at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Hamburg Staatsoper.

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