The internationally acclaimed Swedish soprano Kerstin Avemo has this season appeared in the role of Nelly in the world premiere of the opera Mythomania by Malmborg Ward at the Göteborg Opera. Kerstin has also been a guest at the New National Theatre in Tokyo where she sang Adele in Die Fledermaus. The spring of 2024 include the title role in L’Incoronazione di Poppea at Theater Basel in a new production by Christoph Marthaler. Kerstin will also sing Schönberg’s Pierrot lunaire when the production from 2021, based on Kerstin's own idea, concept, and direction, returns to the Göteborg Opera.
In the previous season, Kerstin sang Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Gothenburg and Anita in the revival of Léhar’s Giuditta at the Bayerische Staatsoper, a production she also participated in when it premiered in 2021.
Kerstin is from 2018/19 engaged as a guest soloist at the Göteborg Opera and has since then appeared in roles such as Juliette in Trois fragments de Juliette by Martinů, Violetta in La traviata Mimì in La bohème and Elle in La voix humaine and the Prima Donna in Donizetti’s Viva la mamma. Kerstin made her debut at the Göteborg Opera in 2002 with the title role in Alban Berg's Lulu, for which she won both the Svenska Dagbladet and Opera magazine prizes. This was followed by roles such as Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, and Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice.
In the season of 2020/21 Staatsoper Hamburg witnessed Mrs Avemo’s magical performance of Elle in La voix humaine, a role that yielded her rave reviews. Kerstin has been a guest at the Royal Swedish Opera in several productions with roles like Leilah/Lilith in the world premiere of Tristessa by Johan S. Bohlin, Mélisande in Pelléas and Mélisande, Gilda in Rigoletto and the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte.
Kerstin Avemo has appeared as Oscar/Un ballo in maschera and Sophie/Der Rosenkavalier at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, she has performed the role of Leticia Maynar in The Exterminating Angel by Adès at the Royal Danish Opera and she has sung Gilda in Rigoletto at Staatstheater Darmstadt and in Weimar. Kerstin sung the role of the Maid in Powder her Face at La Monnaie in Brussels, as well as in Warsaw at the Polish National Opera. Kerstin has sung Olympia/Giulietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann at Bregenzer Festspiele, directed by Stefan Herheim, and has appeared as Despina in Così fan tutte directed by Michael Haneke at Teatro Real in Madrid, La Monnaie and at Wiener Festwochen. Kerstin has sung Iris/Semele under the baton of William Christie at Theater an der Wien, Hanako in Hosokawa’s Hanjo with the Ruhrtriennale and Atalanta/Serse at Artipelag in Stockholm and Opèra Royal de Versaille.
She created the roles of Wendla Bergmann in Benoît Mernier’s Frühlings Erwachen (La Monnaie), Kristin in Boesmans’ Julie (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, La Monnaie) and has incarnated roles like Blondchen/Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Servilia/La Clemenza di Tito, Oscar /Un ballo in maschera, Musica and Euridice/Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Ofelia/Hamlet, Gretel/Hänsel und Gretel, Juliette/Roméo et Juliette, Adele/Die Fledermaus, Gilda/Rigoletto, Violetta/La traviata, Zerlina/Don Giovanni on stages like Oper Frankfurt, Opernhaus Zürich, Festival Aix-en-Provence, Bolshoi in Moscow, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, DNT Weimar and The Royal Danish Opera. She has worked with directors such as Luc Bondy, David Mc Vicar, Christoph Loy and Kasper Holten under the musical direction of Daniele Gatti, Kazuchi Ono, René Jacobs, Emanuelle Haïm, Esa-Pekka Salonen and others.
Kerstin Avemo’s concert engagements include a wide range of music from contemporary music to baroque. Kerstin has sung the world premiere of Hosokawa’s Futari Shizuka (The Maiden from the Sea) with the Ensemble intercontemporain in 2017 at the Philharmonie de Paris Cité de la musique, and since then at the Kölner Philharmonie, the Kaufman Concert Hall in New York and at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
Kerstin Avemo has also performed Schubert’s Schwanengesang D744, staged by renowned director Romeo Castellucci, at several venues since it premiered in 2013 at the Festival d’Avignon – at the Enniskillen International Beckett Festival and at the Stanislavsky Festival in Moscow, at Opéra Grand Avignon, La Monnaie, and venues in Paris, Luxembourg, Pavia, Torino, Antwerp and Milano.
On CD, Kerstin Avemo can be heard as Kristin in Boesmans Julie (Cypres), as Amor in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (Naxos) and in René Jacobs’ interpretation of Handel’s Messiah (Harmonia Mundi). She can also be experienced on DVD in Christoph Loy’s praised production of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Oper Frankfurt).
Kerstin Avemo studied at the University College of Opera in Stockholm. In 2016 Kerstin Avemo was awarded the medal Litteris et Artibus from HM King Carl XVI Gustaf, for her outstanding accomplishments as an opera singer.
