Erika Sunnegårdh as Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera

Erika Sunnegårdh has swiftly emerged as one of opera's brightest and most beloved stars.  Her meteoric rise to fame has been featured in many articles and media outlets, both in the U.S. and abroad. 

The child of two prominent Swedish voice teachers, she moved to New York at the age of 19 and attended the Manhattan School of Music and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College; in between, she worked as church cantor in the Bronx and took various waitressing and catering jobs to make ends meet.  Almost twenty years later, in the spring of 2004, in one of the most astonishing breakthroughs of modern opera, she was signed by the Metropolitan Opera in New York after only two auditions and with no previous opera stage experience.

She made her operatic debut in the title role of Turandot at the Malmö Opera och Musikteater in Sweden in September 2004.  Then, 18 months later, she made her much publicized Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio, as well as her Carnegie Hall debut singing with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Maestro James Conlon.  She now returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Turandot, the icy object of affection in Puccini's classic opera of the same name. 

For tickets and venue information: www.metoperafamily.org

For more about Erika Sunnegårdh: www.erikasunnegardh.com

Image courtesy of www.erikasunnegardh.com