Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir
Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, an Icelandic soprano and multidisciplinary artist, is a prizewinner of numerous competitions. She represented Iceland at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World and was named Singer of the Year at the Icelandic Music Awards. For the 2025/26 concert season, she was selected by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) as a Rising Star. With her innovative artistic approach, exceptional versatility and openness to new forms of expression, she has established herself as a sought-after performer. Together with pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, she released the rework Notturno on Deutsche Grammophon. Also released on Deutsche Grammophon, in close collaboration with Icelandic composer Viktor Orri Árnason, was Poems. The song cycle combines contemporary composition, Icelandic poetry and visual elements into a Gesamtkunstwerk and at the same time marks Álfheiður Erla’s debut as a composer.
Highlights of the 2026/27 season include two world premieres at the Theater Basel, where she will appear as a guest in the concert performance If I Do Not Return. Together with pianist and composer Hania Rani and mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir is developing a mystical, installation-based concert performance in the Elisabethenkirche, based on texts from the Renaissance songs of John Dowland. She will also take part in the world premiere of the opera Herakles Mad by Bryce Dessner at the Theater Basel, in which she will perform the roles of Iris/Lyssa; the production is directed by Ragnar Kjartansson. Further highlights of the season include Christmas concerts with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Fauré’s Requiem with the Göteborg Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Barbara Hannigan, as well as her debut as Nanetta (Falstaff) at the newly founded Icelandic National Opera.
As part of the ECHO Rising Stars series in the 2025/26 season, Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir presented three independent programmes together with pianist Kunal Lahiry, showcasing different facets of her artistic profile, and appeared with them at renowned concert halls such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Konzerthuset Stockholm, L’Auditori Barcelona, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, BOZAR Brussels, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Kölner Philharmonie and the Wiener Konzerthaus. In addition, she made her critically acclaimed debut at the Theater an der Wien in the title role of Alice (Alice in Wonderland) by Unsuk Chin, directed by Elisabeth Stöppler and conducted by Stephan Zilias. During the same season, she returned to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, where she sang Soprano 2 in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.
Since her 2020 debut as the Angel (Saint François d’Assise) by Olivier Messiaen at the Theater Basel, Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir has remained closely associated with the house and subsequently became a permanent ensemble member. Her roles in Basel include Gilda (Rigoletto), Drusilla (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Belinda and Second Witch (Dido and Aeneas), as well as participation in staged productions of Bach’s (Matthäus-Passion), Haydn’s (Die Schöpfung) and Mozart’s (Requiem). In the Theater Basel’s new Ring cycle, she appeared as the Forest Bird (Siegfried). She has also sung in Philip Glass’s (Einstein on the Beach) as well as Stephen Sondheim’s (Into the Woods). At the same time, she has devoted herself intensively to contemporary music and participated in world premieres including Bernhard Lang’s Der Hetzer and Anda Kryezi’s operatic adaptation Persona.
At the Theater Basel, she has worked with directors including Benedikt von Peter, Susanne Kennedy, Romeo Castellucci, Christoph Marthaler, Vincent Huguet, the Peeping Tom Collective, Franck Chartier, Martin G. Berger and Thomas Verstraeten, as well as with conductors including Alessandro de Marchi, Laurence Cummings, Ivor Bolton, Michele Spotti, Jonathan Nott and Jörg Halubek.
She studied voice at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, where, while still in training, she made her debut at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin in the title role of Wolfgang Mitterer’s opera Schneewittchen. In 2019, she was selected for Renée Fleming’s SongStudio at Carnegie Hall.