Swedish mezzo-soprano Charlotte Hellekant enjoys a career equally successful in both opera and concert, boasting a wide repertoire including baroque, classical and contemporary roles. She is highly praised for her strong stage presence and expressive abilities as an actress.
Charlotte Hellekant has appeared on the opera stage on both sides of the Atlantic, with appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, Opéra National de Paris, De Nederlandse Opera, Glyndebourne Festival, English National Opera, La Monnaie and Festival Aix-en-Provence. Recent roles include Charlotte (Werther) with Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carmen with Royal Swedish Opera, Ino (Semele) at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Marguérite (La damnation de Faust) at the Salzburger Festspiele, Cornelia (Giulio Cesare) under Marc Minkowski for the Opernhaus Zürich and Judith in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle at the Bergen Festival under Edward Gardner.
Charlotte Hellekant’s recent interpretation of Murusame, one of the leading roles in Toshio Hosokawa’s acclaimed Matsukaze (co-produced in association with Sasha Waltz & Guests by La Monnaie, Teatr Wielki, Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg and Staatsoper unter den Linden) was described by the Financial Times as “spellbinding”. The successful collaboration with Hosokawa brought another new commission, The Raven,which together with Ensemble Lucelin will be performed in Brussels, Luxembourg, Amsterdam and Paris. Hellekant has also previously performed contemporary works by György Ligeti, Luciano Berio, Erik Bergmans, Hans-Jürgan von Bose, Samuel Barber, John Corigliano and Jake Heggie. Hellekant received particular acclaim at last year's Turku Festival with her tour de force performance as Erik XIV, Sweden’s schizophrenic king, in Mikko Heiniö’s opera of the same name.
Following on from her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel last season, 2012/13 includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Wiener Symphoniker (under Christoph Poppen) and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos), Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with hr-Sinfonieorchester(Paavo Järvi), Mahler’s SymphonyNo. 2 with the NDR Sinfonieorchester (Eivind Gullberg Jensen) as well as La demoiselle élue with the Bremer Philharmoniker and the world première of Sarah Rothenberg’s In the garden of dreamswith Da Camera of Houstonincorporating music from Schoenberg’s Das Buch der hängenden Gärten.
Recent seasons have seen Hellekant work with many notable conductors and orchestras, including Christoph von Dohnányi and the Philharmonia Orchestra at the BBC Proms, Christoph Eschenbach and the NDR Sinfonieorchester, Paavo Järvi with Orchestre de Paris, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra, Mariss Jansons and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
She appears on numerous recordings including Mahler’sSymphony No. 2 with Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (Decca), Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre with Salonen (Sony), Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Messiah with Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre (DG), Grieg’s Peer Gynt with Paavo Järvi (Virgin Classics), Nystroem’s Sinfonia del Mare and Songs by the Sea with Svetlanov and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Musica Sveciae), and a collection of Nystroem songs recorded with Anders Kilström for Daphne records.