Biography

Acclaimed on prestigious venues such as the Bayreuth Festival, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Staatsoper Hamburg, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and the Opéra national de Paris, Swiss soprano Gabriela Scherer has earned international recognition for her ardent portrayals of roles by Gluck, Mozart, Puccini, Strauss, Verdi, Wagner, and Weber.

Highlights of the 2026/27 season include a return to Elsa in a new production of Lohengrin for her house debut at Teatro Verdi Trieste, her role debut as Venus and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser in a new staging at Oper Dortmund, her first Vier letzte Lieder by Strauss at the Centro Cultural de Belém Lisbon, followed by Leonore in Fidelio at Casa da Música Porto and Teatro Municipal Almada, as well as her debut at the Budapest Wagner Days as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer.

In the 2025/26 season, she performed Irene in the first-ever performances of Rienzi at the Bayreuth Festival, presented as part of its 150th-anniversary celebrations; made her role debut as Alice Ford in Falstaff at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where she also performed Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. At the Opernhaus Zürich, she appeared as Leonore in Fidelio; and she returned to the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Senta.

Other performances of the last few seasons include debuts in a variety of iconic roles from the German jugendlich-dramatische and the Italian lirico spinto repertoire, such as Chrysothemis in Elektra (Semperoper Dresden), Leonore in Fidelio (Lisbon), the title roles in Arabella (Deutsche Oper am Rhein) and Tosca (Dortmund), Elsa in Lohengrin, Elisabetta in Don Carlo and Agathe in Der Freischütz (Oper Leipzig).

She also has a special focus on Mozart, having sung her first Pamina at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in the 2024/25 season, where she also made her role debut as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni in 2023/24. At the Semperoper Dresden, she performed Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro.

Other important recent performances include her debut at the Bayreuther Festspiele as Gutrune in Götterdämmerung (2024 and 2025), Elisabetta and the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Arabella in a new production at Deutsche Oper Berlin, the title role in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride at the Semperoper Dresden as well as Senta at the Staatsoper Hamburg, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Bozar Brussels and the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon. In concert, she made her debut at the Teatro Real Madrid in a gala featuring excerpts from Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser, as well as Strauss’s Arabella. She also made her Chinese debut at the NCPA Beijing as Sieglinde in Act I of Die Walküre with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and performed the title part of Liszt’s Die Legende von der heiligen Elisabeth with the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra at Müpa Budapest and on tour at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Flagey Brussels.

Additionally, she has appeared at the Opéra national de Paris, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Theater Luzern, among others.

Gabriela Scherer was born in Zurich and studied with Prof. Horiana Branisteanu and Prof. Elisabeth Wilke at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She furthered her training at the Opera Studio of the Zurich Opera and in masterclasses with Angelika Kirchschlager, Francisco Araiza, and Bernarda Fink. At the beginning of her career, she was a member of the ensemble at the Leipzig Opera and later joined the ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

She regularly collaborates with conductors such as Marc Albrecht, Riccardo Chailly, Adam Fischer, Lawrence Foster, John Eliot Gardiner, Gustavo Gimeno, Thomas Guggeis, Pablo Heras-Casado, Christopher Hogwood, Marek Janowski, Axel Kober, Marc Minkowski, Kent Nagano, Tarmo Peltokoski, Petr Popelka, Donald Runnicles, Nathalie Stutzmann, and Simone Young.

September 2026