Michèle Crider is one of today’s preeminent dramatic sopranos of her generation. She has been making her mark on both the operatic and concert stages of the world in a remarkably wide repertoire.

Miss Crider studied voice at the University of Iowa. She won the District Metropolitan Opera Auditions twice. Afterwards she left Iowa and went to Zurich where she continued her studies at the studio of the Zurich Opera House. In 1988 she was the finalist of the Luciano Pavarotti competition. In 1989 she won one of the three first prizes at the Geneva International Music Competition. This prize directly led to her engagement as Leonora in Il Trovatore in Dortmund and to her participation in the International Grand Prix, which she then won.

Miss Crider has been heard regularly in the world’s great opera houses, including the Royal Opera House Convent Garden, The Metropolitan Opera in New York, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, the Staatsoper Berlin, the State Opera Houses in Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, the Teatro alla Scala in Milano, the Arena di Verona, Rome, Zurich, Barcelona and Madrid.Miss Crider has enjoyed a successful concert career. She has appeared at the Salzburg Festival, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, in Orange, Ravenna and Edinburgh, at the Royal Albert Hall London, Carnegie Hall, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Savonlinna, the Salle Pleyel and Barbican Hall in London with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Paris, Berlin Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne.

She made her debut in America with a new production of Aida in San Diego in 1996. Then debuts in San Francisco with Aida and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with Madame Butterfly followed.

She has been collaborated with today’s greatest conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, James Levine, Nello Santi, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Semyon Bychkov, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Chailly and Sir Colin Davis.

Her Repertoire includes the roles of Leonora in IL TROVATORE and LA FORZA DEL DESTINO, Amelia in UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, Elvira in ERNANI, Elisabeth in DON CARLO, die title roles in LUISA MILLER, AIDA, MADAMA BUTTERFLY, TOSCA, NORMA, MANON LESCAUT, LA GIOCONDA, Odabella in ATTILA, Lucrezia in I DUE FOSCARI, Giselda in I LOMBARDI, Imogene in IL PIRATA, NORMA, Margherita/Elena in MEFISTOFELE und Santuzza in CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA.

Miss Crider opened the 2008-2009 Season as Madama Butterfly at the LA Opera, under the baton of James Conlon. She continues the season with Tosca for the Vienna State Opera, both Odabella in Attila and Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera for the Hamburg State Opera, and Margherita in Mefistofele and Tosca at the New Israeli Opera! Aida and the roll debut as Manon Lescaut at the Openair Classics Solothurn. Future engagements include Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Toronto Symphony and Britten’s War Requiem with Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the return to the Vienna State Opera as Leonora in Verdi´s La Forza del Destino, the New Israeli Opera as Elvira in Ernani and an AIDA tour in Japan, Openair Classic Solothurn- Il Trovatore, la Forza del Destino, Tosca, role debute as Otello´s Desdemona at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow during the Rostropovich festival!

November, 2009

Long version of Michèle’s biography