Biography ------Biography & Repertoire download

„This soprano has the potential to perform even the hardest pieces - and convey them to the audience with her art“ (Augsburger Allgemeine Dec. 2010)

Already as a student at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg in the class of Prof. Ingrid Mayr, she received her first opera engagements at the Salzburg Landestheater and Festspielhaus. She sang the Naiad in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, as well as the Sandman and Dewman in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. The international Mozarteum Foundation awarded her the Lilli Lehmann Medal for her debut as Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale at the Salzburg Landestheater, as well as the excellence of her outstanding masters degree.

Esther Kretzinger was born in 1983 in Transylvania. Born in a musical family, she discovered her love of singing as a child. She took her first singing lessons during her school years in her town of origin - Günzburg (Germany), where she grew up.

Her triumph in many renowned voice competitions soon brought her to the attention of the international audience and the specialized press. A few of these successes were the 1. prize at the 35. Federal Singing Competition in Berlin, and the 2. prize at the 26. International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna. She was also an award winner at the 12. International Ferruccio Tagliavini Singing Competition under the patronage of Dame Joan Sutherland and received a special award at the 25. International Robert Stolz Singing Competition in 2010.

She has since been touring successfully at home and abroad as a concert and opera singer. In 2008, she accepted an invitation by the National Opera of Oslo to a concert tour with the „Den Norske Opera Orkester“ through Norway and Russia, and up to the North Pole. In the same year, she gave her Debut at the Wurzburg Mainfrankentheater, at the Bolzano theatre and the Schweinfurt theatre.

Since 2009, chamber music has become an integral part of her work alongside the opera. She is a regular guest of the German Chamber Academy Neuss under chief conductor Lavard Skou-Larsen, and of the Salzburg Chamber Soloists. Concert tours with numerous orchestras and Liederabend have brought her from Germany through Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Hungary.
She sang Haydn’s Creation at the grand autumn concert 2010 of the Waldsassen basilica, where she first met the musicians of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. She has already collaborated with conductors such as Markus Poschner, Ivor Bolton, Daniel Hoyem-Cavazza, Johannes Wildner, Herbert Mogg, Albert Anglberger, Jin Wang, Kai Röhrig, Andreas Sagstetter, Sebastian Weigle, Ola Rudner, Per Kristian Skalstad, Terje Boye Hansen and Walter Gehlert.

Esther Kretzinger has recently released a recording of Lieder with the pianist Andrej Hovrin, featuring works by J.Brahms, A.Dvořák, Z.Kodály and B.Bartók, produced by Gramola in Vienna.