Full Biography
The rising lyrical soprano Athanasia Zöhrer “convinces with limitless vocal power, a securely guided soprano voice, enormous musicality and Italianità is finely nuanced and touching in her performance” (Das Opernglas, 2023). Zöhrer has already appeared as a guest artist and soloist at some of Europe’s prestigious opera houses such as the Semperoper Dresden, the Hamburg State Opera, Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf, Oper Leipzig and Opéra National de Montpellier and is a previous ensemble member of Hannover State Opera.
In the 2024-2025 season, Athanasia Zöhrer presents a variety of role debuts and new productions. She kicks off her season with her role debut as Agathe (Der Freischütz) in a new production at Salzburg State Theatre. The soprano further debuts the role of Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus next to Rolando Villazón as Eisenstein at Theater St Gallen and the title role in Friedrich von Flotow’s Martha under the direction of Pavel Baleff at the Limoges Opera. At Lausanne Opera Zöhrer takes on the role of Sifare in Mozart’s Mitridate. The soprano finishes her season with yet another role debut: She premiers the role of Violetta (La Traviata) at Opera Chemnitz.
Highlights of recent seasons include her highly anticipated role debut as Mathilde in a new production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell at Theater St. Gallen. At Oper Leipzig she presented Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) and Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto. At State Opera Hamburg Zöhrer sang Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and her debut as Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohéme at Theater Kiel as well as a Michaëla (Carmen). Athanasia Zöhrer gave her Mozart Week debut in 2022 in the children’s opera Der Alte Baum. At State Opera Hannover the soprano sang Corinna in Il Vaggio a Reims, Adele (Fledermaus), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Nannetta (Falstaff), Servilla (La clemenza di Tito) and Virginia in Das Gespenst von Canterville at Volksoper Wien.
On the concert stage Athanasia Zöhrer presented a Mozart program with Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire on a tour through France and starred next to Rolando Villazón in a gala concert at Koncerthuset Copenhagen. She sang her debut of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with the Philharmonic Orchestra Kiel and Brahms Requiem in Vienna.
The Berlin born Soprano of Greek-Austrian decent achieved a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Classical singing and Opera at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. During her master’s Zöhrer debuted roles such as Contessa in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen.
She won the Hübel Foundation scholarship and the Gianna-Szell scholarship and was awarded the prestigious Austrian Federal Ministry Award for Education, Science and Research.
At the 2014 Bundeswettbewerb, the German National Singing Competition, Athanasia won the collective prize from the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper and Berlin State Opera. In 2022 Athanasia was a finalist of the Francesco Vinas Competition in Barcelona.
© CSAM, August 2024
