Astrid Nordstad: A Mezzo’s Journey Through Heart and Stage

For me, singing different styles is more about my approach to the repertoire and being conscious of the genre than about changing my technique.
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by Alice Lechner

INTRODUCTION

Norwegian mezzo-soprano Astrid Nordstad has captivated audiences with her versatile voice and deeply expressive performances, from Rossini’s agile heroines to the rich drama of Wagner and Grieg. A graduate of Oslo and Copenhagen’s top music institutions, and a former member of the Norwegian National Opera’s Young Artist Program, Astrid combines technical mastery with emotional authenticity, bringing characters vividly to life on stage. In this conversation with Alice Lechner, she shares insights into her artistic journey, her approach to iconic roles like Carmen and Haugtussa, and how she balances a demanding career with personal growth and family life.

BIOGRAPHY

Astrid Nordstad is a Norwegian mezzo-soprano, born in Trondheim. A well-known voice in her home country, she was awarded the Tom Wilhelmsen Opera Prize in 2022—the most important of its kind in Norway—and is now steadily building a presence on the operatic and concert stages across Europe.In the 2025/26 season, she makes an important role debut as Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlo at the Norwegian National Opera. She also returns to the roles of Olga in Eugene Onegin and Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town. In concert, she sings Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Ålesund Symphony Orchestra and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Nidaros Cathedral, with further engagements to be announced. The 2024/25 season featured a series of contrasting debuts: Emilia in Verdi’s Otello, Mother Goose in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Sylva in Die Csárdásfürstin, and the Male Fox in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen. She appeared with the Staatsorchester Oldenburg in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, with the Bergen Philharmonic in Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the Malmö Opera Orchestra and Choir, and in the Norwegian premiere of A Plastic Theatre by Johanna Marsh with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. In earlier seasons, she sang Olga in Eugene Onegin at both the Royal Danish Opera and the Norwegian National Opera, where she also appeared as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Tisbe in La Cenerentola, and Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town. Other roles included Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte at Bergen National Opera, the title role in Carmen with the Helgeland Sinfonietta, Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress at the Oslo Opera Festival, and Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia for Ringsakeroperaen. As a concert soloist, she recently performed Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder with the Dresden Festival Orchestra under Marc Minkowski, and sang Cleofe in Händel’s La Resurrezione with Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre in Aix-en-Provence and at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. She performed Berlioz’s La Mort de Cléopâtre at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and made her Concertgebouw debut in Bruckner’s Mass in f minor with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Other recent highlights include Shéhérazade with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra under Marc Soustrot, Lied von der Erde with the Kristiansund Symphony Orchestra, Rückert-Lieder with the Danish Chamber Orchestra under Ádám Fischer, Messiah with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla, and Das Lied von der Erde with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León. A dedicated recitalist, she has performed at Grieg’s birth house and is featured on the album Peter Heise: The Song Edition Condensed. In her native Norway, she is widely appreciated for her interpretation of Grieg’s Haugtussa. From 2018 to 2020, she was a member of the Norwegian National Opera’s Young Artists’ Programme, where she sang Maddalena in Rigoletto, Badessa in Suor Angelica, Mercedes in Carmen, Masha in The Queen of Spades, and Tisbe in La Cenerentola. Raised in Trondheim, her first musical experiences were with the Nidaros Cathedral Girls’ Choir. She studied singing at the Norwegian Academy of Music and was selected for the opera programme at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. She later joined the Opera Academy in Copenhagen, where she studied with Susanna Eken. In 2019, she reached the semi-finals of the Queen Sonja International Music Competition and was awarded the Ingrid Bjoner Scholarship as best Norwegian participant.

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INTERVIEW

Dear Astrid, it s a pleasure to have this conversation with you! Thank you so much for accepting my invitation. Let’s introduce you to our readers. Was there a particular moment when you realized, „that is what I want to do for the rest of my life”? No, not really. I’ve always enjoyed singing, and […]

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Alice Lechner

Alice Lechner

Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.

Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.

Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Oana Zamfir

Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.

She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.

Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.

Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.

Alexandru Suciu

Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.

His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.

During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.

He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.

Cristina Fieraru

Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.

She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.

She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.

Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.

BIANCA L. NICA

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