Vanessa is a leading artist in German opera repertoire. A young artist of the 2019 Bayreuth Festival Masterclass in Bayreuth, Germany and semi-finalist of the 2018 Richard Wagner International Singing Competition at Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, she also gave premier performances of Freia (Das Rheingold) and Sieglinde (Die Walküre) last season and gave her first performance of Gutrune in Wagner´s Götterdämmerung in February, 2020. In Autumn, 2020 Vanessa will sing the role of Chrysothemis in Strauss´s Elektra in Toronto, Canada.
Born in Toronto, Canada and of German heritage, Vanessa studied at York University, Canada where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in music and theatre set and costume design. Vanessa went on the complete masters degrees at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London (Music Performance with Distinction) where she studied with Penelope Mackay and Sarah Walker, and at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität, Vienna, Austria (Opera Performance). Vanessa has also been a member of the Bayreuth Festival Chorus.
Vanessa began her career singing contemporary and 20th century music. She was the the winner of the Tracey Chadwell Memorial Prize at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and a finalist in the Patricia Routledge English Song Competition as well as the third place winner of the prestigious Canada Council sponsored Eckhardt-Gramatte Competition in 2011. She went on the perform works by several contemporary composers. Not long thereafter, she also showed a particular passion and affinity for German repertoire and was a selected young artist for the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme (Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, England, sponsored by the Canadian Aldeburgh Foundation) for her interpretations of songs by Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf, where she worked with Dame Ann Murray and Roger Vignoles. After being cast to sing the role of Donna Elvira in Mozart´s Don Giovanni for the Centre for Opera Studies in Sulmona Italy (COSI), artistic faculty remarked on her potential to sing Wagnerian and other more dramatic repertoire. Vanessa then began to explore the music of Richard Wagner and Carl Maria von Weber.
Early operatic credits included Mélisande in the Constant / Debussy / Brook's version of Impressions de Pelléas, Drusilla in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Madama Cortese (Viaggio a Reims), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Giulietta (I Capuletti e i Montecchi, Bellini), Pamina (Die Zaubberflöte) and the Governess (The Turn of the Screw, Britten). vanessa has now moved on to singing more dramatic repertoire. She received glowing reviews for her interpretations of Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Gutrune (Götterdämmerung) and Agathe ( Der Freischütz). Additional roles in her repertoire include Elsa (Lohengrin), Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), Gerhilde (Die Walküre), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Miss Jessel (The Turn of the Screw), Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes), First and Second Ladies (Die Zauberflöte), Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito) Elisabetta (Don Carlo) and Marie (Wozzeck).
Concert appearances for Vanessa have included performances with the Leipziger Barockorchester, Konzertgesellschaft Bad Kreuznach, Stratford Symphony Orchestra, the London Singers Canada, Haydn Orchester Eisenstadt, Ensemble Neue Streicher Klosterneuburg, Collegium Instrumentale Brugense and the Pax Christie Chorale.
Vanessa currently resides in Berlin Germany.
Photo by André Post, 2020
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