Born in
Brisbane, Lisa Gasteen studied at the
Queensland Conservatorium of Music, where she was a pupil of Margaret Nickson. In 1982 she won the Australian Regional Finals of the
Metropolitan Opera Auditions and in 1984 she was awarded the
Covent Garden Scholarship. In the same year she sang in the Queen's 60th Birthday Gala at the
Royal Opera House. She made her operatic debut in 1985 with the Lyric Opera of Queensland (now
Opera Queensland) as the High Priestess (
Aida), followed by Desdemona (
Otello). She has been a regular guest artist with
Opera Australia and her many roles with the company include Miss Jessel (
The Turn of the Screw), Madame Lidoine (
Dialogues of the Carmelites), Ortlinde (
Die Walküre), Leonora (
Il trovatore,
La forza del destino and
Fidelio), Elsa (
Lohengrin), Donna Elvira and Donna Anna (
Don Giovanni), Aida, Elisabetta (
Don Carlos), Elisabeth (
Tannhäuser) and Amelia (
Un ballo in maschera). For
Victoria State Opera she has sung Elisabetta, Elisabeth, Desdemona, Aida and Leonora (
Il trovatore). After winning the 1991 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, Lisa Gasteen was invited to sing Donna Anna in Prague with Sir
Charles Mackerras followed by her British debut in 1992 as Leonora in Scottish Opera's new production of
Il trovatore. Subsequently she was invited to perform in Europe and the United States with companies including
Welsh National Opera,
Deutsche Oper Berlin,
Staatsoper Berlin,
Scottish Opera and with the opera companies of Strasbourg, Stuttgart, Zurich, Dallas and Washington. She made her debut at the
Metropolitan Opera, New York in 1997 as Aida. She has also performed in these houses roles including Leonora (
Il trovatore, with Rizzi),
La forza del destino,
Fidelio, Amelia (
Un ballo in maschera), Madeleine de Coigny (
Andrea Chénier), Aida (with
Zubin Mehta),
Tosca, Ariadne (
Ariadne auf Naxos) and Chrysothemis (
Elektra). She made her role debut as Die Kaiserin (
Die Frau ohne Schatten) under
Simone Young at the 1996
Melbourne International Arts Festival. Recent seasons have seen Lisa Gasteen return to the Staatsoper Berlin to perform Chrysothemis, Brünnhilde (
Siegfried) in Stuttgart, Leonora (
Fidelio), her role debut as Isolde (
Tristan und Isolde) for
Opera Australia, for which she was the recipient of a
Helpmann Award, Brünnhilde at the Meiningen Festival in her first complete
Ring Cycle, making her Australia's first Brünnhilde for some sixty years, her debut at the
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Isolde under
Bernard Haitink, Chrysothemis at the Staatsoper Berlin and further performances of Brünnhilde (Siegfried) in Stuttgart. Engagements in 2003 included three major role debuts - Marta (
Tiefland) with the Vienna Philharmonic, the title roles in
Elektra at the Royal Opera House and
Salome for
Opera Australia as well as
Ariadne auf Naxos with the Staatsoper/Berlin. In 2004, she made her role debut as Senta in
The Flying Dutchman with Opera Australia, performed Sieglinde (
Die Walküre) at the Metropolitan Opera, Elektra in concert with the
Cleveland Orchestra, Isolde in Stuttgart Opera's new production of
Tristan und Isolde and Brünnhilde in
State Opera of South Australia's new production of the Ring under
Asher Fisch, for which she has received another Helpmann Award. 2005 engagements included Brünnhilde in the Ring Cycle for the
Vienna Staatsoper (making her house debut) under Simone Young and for the Royal Opera House in the company's new production under
Antonio Pappano, as well as Isolde for
Opéra Bastille Paris. In Australia she performed Isolde for the
Queensland Music Festival and she was honoured with a third Helpmann Award for this performance. 2006 included a return to the Royal Opera House to perform Brünnhilde and Elektra at
Tanglewood Festival. More recently she made her role debut as Faeberin in
Die Frau ohne Schatten in Hamburg, performed Fidelio in Seville, Brünnhilde/Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Royal Opera House. Future engagements include a return to Hamburg for Faeberin and Brünnhilde/Walküre, further performances of Brünnhilde at the Metropolitan Opera, concerts with the Tasmanian, West Australian, Adelaide and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. Lisa Gasteen's concert repertoire includes
Rossini's
Stabat Mater,
Mendelssohn's
Elijah,
Janáček's
Glagolitic Mass,
Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony and Verdi's
Requiem with orchestras including the
Sydney,
Tasmanian,
Queensland and
Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, the
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, BBC Welsh Symphony, in Budapest, Göteborg, in Durham Cathedral, with the
Florida Philharmonic Orchestra under
James Judd as Leonore in
Fidelio, and for the Melbourne International Festival,
Sydney Festival and Bergen Festival. Lisa Gasteen was awarded the Opera Foundation's 1999 Bayreuth Scholarship. In 2002, she was the recipient of the Myer Foundation's Individual Performer Award and in 2004 was the arts category winner of the Bulletin Magazine's Smart 100 series. In the
Australia Day Honours of 2006, she was appointed an Officer of the
Order of Australia (AO). In August 2013, she made her return to the Sydney Symphony, performing Wagner's
Wesendonck Lieder. Lisa Gasteen is currently on the staff of the
Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University as a singing teacher and Practice Professor of Opera. In 2011, she founded the
Lisa Gasteen National Opera School, an intensive, four-week summer school with international guest coaches. ==References==