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INTRODUCTION
Swiss soprano Chelsea Zurflüh is rapidly emerging as one of opera’s brightest young talents. This season, she makes house and role debuts at the Royal Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Komische Oper Berlin, and Opernhaus Zürich, while appearing on major concert stages across Europe. A prizewinner at the 78th Concours de Genève and SWR Junge Opernstars, Chelsea combines technical brilliance with natural stage presence. In this interview with Alice Lechner, she shares her journey, her love for bel canto, and the joys and challenges of life on stage.
BIOGRAPHY
In the 2025/26 season, Chelsea Zurflüh makes a sensational debut at the Royal Opera House as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, a role she first debuts at Oper Köln. She also makes her house and role debut as Marie in La fille du régiment at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. She returns to Opernhaus Zürich for a long-awaited first Sophie in Werther, and makes another role and house debut as Zerlina and Soprano in Kirill Serebrennikov’s production of Don Giovanni / Requiem at Komische Oper Berlin.
On the concert stage, Chelsea debuts with L'Orchestre de Chambre de Genève in Ethel Smyth's Der Wald, sings for the first time with Il Pomo d’Oro in Bach’s St. John Passion under Maxim Emelyanychev, and performs Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. She returns to the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg for Fünfte Magd in Elektra with Alan Gilbert and makes her UK debut with The Mozartists in a concert at Cadogan Hall.
Last season, Chelsea made her debut at the Handel Festspiele in the title role of Clori, Tirsi e Fileno and a role debut as Serpina in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona at Théâtre Biel-Solothurn. On the concert stage, she debuted with the Tonkünstler Orchestra singing Handel’s Messiah on tour under Ivor Bolton, Matthew Halls, and Mozart’s Requiem with Andreas Ottensamer at Stadttheater Wiener Neustadt. Chelsea closed the Philharmonie Luxembourg season with an outdoor gala alongside Joyce DiDonato under Gustavo Gimeno, reopened the Classic Open Air series for Konzerthaus Berlin, and sang a gala concert with Jonathan Tetelman at Schloss Neuschwanstein. She performs regularly at the Tonhalle Zürich, with highlights this season including a New Year’s concert with Heiko Mathias Förster and the Zürcher Symphoniker, as well as concerts celebrating Mozart’s birthday with CHAARTS Chamber Artists.
On the competition scene, Chelsea has enjoyed major success across Europe. She was a prizewinner at the renowned 78th Concours de Genève 2024, where she not only won first prize but also nine special prizes, including a role at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and several other concert opportunities. At the SWR Junge Opernstars 2025, she won first prize for Female Voice as well as the Emmerich Smola Orchestra Prize from the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie.
In previous seasons, the Swiss soprano performed Gerhilde in Die Walküre at the Prague State Opera, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Palace of Culture Dresden, and the Philharmonie Cologne under the baton of Kent Nagano. She has also sung concerts at prestigious venues including the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Baroque orchestra La Cetra under Andrea Marcon, the Stuttgart Liederhalle with Il Gusto Barocco under Jörg Halubek, and the Tonhalle Zürich with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Heiko Mathias Förster. She has collaborated with conductors such as Alvetina Ioffe, Chiara Cattani, Kent Nagano, Riccardo Minasi, Victorien Vanoosten, Vladimir Kiradjiev, Christoph König, and Joseph Bastien.
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INTERVIEW
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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 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 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 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.
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