Lisa Gasteen

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Lisa Kinkead Gasteen

AO[1] (born 13 November 1957[citation needed]), is an Australian operatic soprano, known for her performances of the works of Wagner. She won the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1991. She did not perform between 2008 and 2011, due to neuro-muscular spasms in her neck.[2]

Career

Born in Brisbane, Lisa Gasteen studied at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music,[3] where she was a pupil of Margaret Nickson. In 1982 she won the Australian Regional Finals of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and in 1984 she was awarded the Covent Garden Scholarship. In the same year she sang in the Queen's 60th Birthday Gala at the Royal Opera House.

She made her operatic debut in 1985 with the Lyric Opera of Queensland (now Opera Queensland) as the High Priestess (Aida), followed by Desdemona (Otello). She has been a regular guest artist with Opera Australia and her many roles with the company include Miss Jessel (The Turn of the Screw), Madame Lidoine (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Ortlinde (Die Walküre), Leonora (Il trovatore, La forza del destino and Fidelio), Elsa (Lohengrin), Donna Elvira and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Aida, Elisabetta (Don Carlos), Elisabeth (Tannhäuser) and Amelia (Un ballo in maschera). For Victoria State Opera she has sung Elisabetta, Elisabeth, Desdemona, Aida and Leonora (Il trovatore).

After winning the 1991 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, Lisa Gasteen was invited to sing Donna Anna in Prague with Sir

Staatsoper Berlin, Scottish Opera and with the opera companies of Strasbourg, Stuttgart, Zurich, Dallas and Washington. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York in 1997 as Aida. She has also performed in these houses roles including Leonora (Il trovatore, with Rizzi), La forza del destino, Fidelio, Amelia (Un ballo in maschera), Madeleine de Coigny (Andrea Chénier), Aida (with Zubin Mehta), Tosca, Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos) and Chrysothemis (Elektra). She made her role debut as Die Kaiserin (Die Frau ohne Schatten) under Simone Young at the 1996 Melbourne International Arts Festival
.

Recent seasons have seen Lisa Gasteen return to the Staatsoper Berlin to perform Chrysothemis, Brünnhilde (

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Isolde under Bernard Haitink
, Chrysothemis at the Staatsoper Berlin and further performances of Brünnhilde (Siegfried) in Stuttgart.

Engagements in 2003 included three major role debuts - Marta (

Tanglewood Festival.[citation needed
]

More recently she made her role debut as Faeberin in Die Frau ohne Schatten in Hamburg, performed Fidelio in Seville, Brünnhilde/Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Royal Opera House. Future engagements include a return to Hamburg for Faeberin and Brünnhilde/Walküre, further performances of Brünnhilde at the Metropolitan Opera, concerts with the Tasmanian, West Australian, Adelaide and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.

Lisa Gasteen's concert repertoire includes

Queensland and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, BBC Welsh Symphony, in Budapest, Göteborg, in Durham Cathedral, with the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra under James Judd as Leonore in Fidelio, and for the Melbourne International Festival, Sydney Festival
and Bergen Festival.

Lisa Gasteen was awarded the Opera Foundation's 1999 Bayreuth Scholarship. In 2002, she was the recipient of the Myer Foundation's Individual Performer Award and in 2004 was the arts category winner of the Bulletin Magazine's Smart 100 series. In the Australia Day Honours of 2006, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).[1]

In 2008 she was forced to suspend her singing career due to neuro-muscular spasms in her neck.[2] She returned to the stage in May 2011, in a recital with Simone Young on piano.[4] In August 2013, she made her return to the Sydney Symphony, performing Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder.[5]

Lisa Gasteen is currently on the staff of the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University as a singing teacher and Practice Professor of Opera. In 2011, she founded the Lisa Gasteen National Opera School, an intensive, four-week summer school with international guest coaches.

References

  1. ^ a b It's an Honour
  2. ^ a b The Weekend Australian, 21-22 November 2009
  3. ^ "Famous Queensland Conservatorium Of Music Alumni". www.ranker.com. 2018. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  4. ^ "Gasteen is back!", Limelight, July 2011, p. 9
  5. ^ Sydneysymphony.com, August 2013

External links

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