boris orlob management

Biography

Doris Soffel studied singing with Marianne Schech at the Munich University of Music. She made her debut at the Bayreuth Youth Festival as Isabella in Wagner's Liebesverbot. Wolfgang Windgassen then brought her to the Stuttgart Opera, where she was able to build up a broad repertoire, including roles such as Carmen, Cenerentola, Dorabella/Così fan tutte and Octavian/Der Rosenkavalier.

Her success in 1983 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Sesto in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito marked the beginning of her international career. Since then, she has been at home in all the world's major opera houses and concert halls. Doris Soffel became the only German mezzo-soprano with an international career in bel canto coloratura. From the Italian and French mezzo roles of Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Berlioz and Massenet, she developed into a great Wagner and Strauss specialist. She enjoyed her greatest successes in Wagner roles as Fricka/Das Rheingold and Die Walküre not only in Amsterdam, Cologne and Dresden, but also with Solti in Bayreuth, at the Teatro alla Scala with Barenboim and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Rattle. Her Kundry/Parsifal with Thielemann and her Ortrud/Lohengrin with Luisi set new standards.

Further highlights of her opera and concert career included collaborations with legendary conductors such as Celibidache, Karajan, Giulini, Sawallisch, Sinopoli, Maazel, Mehta and Masur.

She performed worldwide in concerts and recitals (especially with Mahler). Her versatility is documented by a significant number of TV and radio recordings, CDs and DVDs.

She has enjoyed triumphs in Strauss roles such as the Nurse/Frau ohne Schatten in Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dresden, Herodias/Salome in Munich, Paris, Madrid, Zurich, Washington, and Klytämnestra/Elektra at the Salzburg Festival, Munich, Stuttgart, Brussels and Berlin.

She was influenced by directors such as Rennert, Ponnelle, Friedrich and Kupfer and now works with Konwitschny, Loy, Carsen, Herheim, Wilson and Tcherniakov, among others.

Outstanding engagements in recent seasons have included Klytämnestra in Elektra at the Semperoper Dresden, the Vienna State Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she also appeared as Herodias in Salome, Madame Louise in Ocean, Adelaide in Arabella, Agnese (La Stregha) in La fiamma and the Countess in Pique Dame. She also performed this role with the Berlin Philharmonic, in Baden-Baden and at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, followed by Mme de Croissy in Dialogues des Carmélites.

Further engagements took her to the Bavarian State Opera as the Respectable Lady in Die Nase and to the National Opera in Amsterdam as the Witch in Die Königskinder.
In the 2025/26 season, Doris Soffel will take on the role of Madelon in Andrea Chenier at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as well as the Countess in Pique Dame and Herodias in Salome at the Hamburg State Opera.

Doris Soffel is a Kammersängerin and a recipient of the Royal Swedish Order of the North Star.

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Download german biography as PDF file
Download complete artist info as PDF file

Artist Website

www.dorissoffel.com

Management

Europe

Artist Manager

Boris Orlob
Managing Director
boris@orlob.net
Mobil: +49-172-8 51 55 14

Repertoire

Repertoire Concert

Bach, J.S.	Christmas Oratorio
	St. Matthew Passion
Beethoven	Missa solemnis
	Symphony no. 9
Berg	Sieben frühe Lieder
Berlioz	La mort de Cleopatre
	Les nuits d'été
	Romeo et Juliette
Brahms	Alt-Rhapsodie
	Vier ernste Gesänge
Dvorak	Stabat Mater
Hindemith	Requiem
Mahler	Das Lied von der Erde
	Des Knaben Wunderhorn
	Kindertotenlieder
	Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
	Rückert-Lieder
	Symphony no. 2
	Symphony no. 3
	Symphony no. 8 / Alto 1
Martin	Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets
	In terra pax
Mendelssohn	Elias
	Paulus
Mozart	Requiem
Pfitzner	Von deutscher Seele Op. 28
Ravel	Shéhérezade
Rossini	Petite Messe solennelle
	Stabat Mater
Schnittke	Faust-Kantate / Mefistofela
Schulhoff	Menschheit Landschaften
Schönberg	Gurrelieder / Waldtaube
Sibelius	Orchesterlieder
Strauss, R.	Orchesterlieder
Strawinsky	Oedipus Rex
Szymanowski	Stabat Mater
Verdi	Requiem
Wagner	Wesendonck-Lieder
Zemlinsky	Sechs Gesänge nach Texten von Maurice Maeterlinck

Repertoire Opera

Bartók	Bluebeard's Castle	Judit
Bellini	Norma	Adalgisa
Berg	Lulu	Countess Geschwitz
Berlioz	Les Troyens	Didon
Bernstein	Candide	Old Lady
Bizet	Carmen	Carmen
Cilea	Adriana Lecouvreur	Principessa
Debussy	Pelléas et Mélisande	Geneviève
Donizetti	La favorita	Leonora
	Maria Stuarda	Elisabetta
Dvorak	Rusalka	Jezibaba
Giordano	Andrea Chénier	La comtesse di Coigny
Gluck	Orfeo et Euridice	Orfeo
Hindemith	Cardillac	Die Dame
Janácek	Katja Kabanova	Kabanicha
Mascagni	Cavalleria rusticana	Santuzza
Massenet	Herodiade	Herodiade
	Werther	Charlotte
Mozart	La clemenza di Tito	Sesto
Mussorgsky	Boris Godunov	Marina
	Chowanschtschina	Marfa
Offenbach	Les contes d'Hoffmann	La voix de la mère
Penderecki	Ubu Rex	Maire Ubu
Ponchielli	La Gioconda	Laura Adorno
Poulenc	Dialogues des Carmélites	Madame de Croissy
Reimann	Troades	Kassandra
Saint-Saëns	Samson et Dalila	Dalila
Schoeck	Penthesilea	Penthesilea
Spohr	Jessonda	Amazili
Strauss, J.	Die Fledermaus	Prinz Orlofsky
Strauss, R.	Arabella	Adelaide
	Ariadne auf Naxos	Composer
	Capriccio	Clairon
	Der Rosenkavalier	Octavian
	Die Frau ohne Schatten	Nurse
	Elektra	Klytämnestra
	Salome	Herodias
Stravinsky	Oedipus Rex	Jokaste
Tchaikovsky	The Maid of Orleans	Joan of Arc
	The Queen of Spades	Countess
Verdi	Aida	Amneris
	Don Carlo	Eboli
	Il trovatore	Azucena
Wagner	Das Rheingold	Fricka
	Die Walküre	Fricka
	Götterdämmerung	Waltraute
	Lohengrin	Ortrud
	Parsifal	Kundry
	Rienzi	Adriano
	Tannhäuser	Venus
	Tristan und Isolde	Brangäne

Download repertoire as PDF file

News

Doris Soffel says thanks with a song

Doris Soffel received a great honour on 19 May 25 in Berlin. Dietmar Schwarz, intendant, and Christoph Seuferle, opera director, presented her with an honorary membership of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at a concert to mark the 25/26 season performance. Doris Soffel has been a regular guest in major roles at the opera house for around 40 years and will continue to perform there in the future. She thanked her audience with Richard Strauss' "Zueignung" accompanied by the DOB orchestra under the direction of GMD Donald Runnicles.

Two great Strauss roles at Deutsche Oper Berlin

This spring, Doris Soffel will be presenting two of her signature roles by Richard Strauss to the audience of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
From 7 March 2025, she will sing Adelaide in Arabella alongside Thomas Johannes Mayer (Mandryka) and Jennifer Davis (Arabella) in Tobias Kratzer's production under the baton of Donald Runnicles.
From 22 March 2025, she will be Klytämnestra in Kirsten Harms' production of Elektra alongside Elena Pankratova (Elektra) and Camilla Nylund (Chrysothemis), among others, under the musical direction of Thomas Søndergård.

Further information and performance dates:
www.deutscheoperberlin.de/ ... (Arabella)
www.deutscheoperberlin.de/ ... (Elektra)

A career in the labyrinth - major TV portrait

Don't miss it!
The Munich film director Mark von Seydlitz has produced a film about Doris Soffel on behalf of ARD and SWR.
The film shows Doris Soffel as an exceptional singer, born in Hechingen in 1948, she has been on stage for 50 years. The film portrays the mezzo-soprano and allows prominent colleagues to have their say.

Film link:
www.ardmediathek.de/...

Unique!

This week we celebrate an artist with whom we have been working for 25 years: Doris Soffel is not only celebrating a special birthday (which, however, we do not name, as befits such a great artist), but can now also look back on a career of more than 50 years, which has taken her to all the great houses and festivals, with an evolution from coloratura mezzo to the dramatic parts of her craft. Simply unique, simply La Soffel!
And the best... she goes on and on! We look forward to her return to the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, the Semperoper Dresden, the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Theatre de la Monnaie, to name but a few theatres.
Representative of many great moments in Doris' career, here are two links to recordings with Joan Sutherland (Norma, 1985) and Thomas Johannes Mayer (Walküre, DNO, 2013).
Norma, 1985
Die Walküre, 2013

The Austrian radio is also dedicating a portrait to Doris Soffel this week. You can find it online via the livestream of Ö1:
Livestream Ö1