Carnegie Hall

For years, Swedish-born Nina Stemme has been considered a leading singer of the most challenging parts in major dramas, from Isolde and Brünnhilde to Salome and Elektra, as well as Fanciulla and Turandot. That she initially shied away from these staggering heights of the soprano repertoire is a noteworthy—if not the defining—characteristic of her career.

When she was offered the part of Isolde in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in 2003, Ms. Stemme already had 14 years of onstage experience, having specialized in lyric parts before moving on to increasingly dramatic roles. It was not until she conferred with famed soprano Birgit Nilsson that she took on Isolde for the first time at the Glyndebourne Festival—a performance that was met with enthusiasm and led to a subsequent recording opposite Plácido Domingo with Sir Antonio Pappano conducting.

Her performance of Isolde has also been documented in the form of a live recording from Berlin under Marek Janowski as well as a television recording of her Glyndebourne performance directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Her Brünnhilde in Die Walküre is available as an audio recording with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev as well as a video recording of the La Scala production under Daniel Barenboim. The diversity of her repertoire is further enhanced with Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules, Aida, Jenůfa, Der Rosenkavalier, and La fanciulla del West.

Respect for the roles and the operas, flexibility, diversity, and a level-headed estimation of her voice’s potential—these were factors that made this highly talented singer an artist of global stature. In 1993, she won Plácido Domingo’s Operalia, The World Opera Competition. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Birgit Nilsson Prize.

In 2022, Ms. Stemme performed Brünnhilde for the last time in a complete Ring cycle at the Vienna State Opera—a role she had sung with the greatest success worldwide for more than 10 years. In 2023, she was named an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera for her yearlong presence at the prestigious opera house. That same year, she received the San Francisco Opera Medal.

Projects in the current season include Lohengrin at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Jenůfa at the Royal Swedish Opera and with The Cleveland Orchestra, and her role debut as Amme in Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Metropolitan Opera.

Since his debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 1981, Roland Pöntinen has performed with major orchestras around the world. He has been invited to many prestigious festivals, including Schleswig-Holstein, Verbier, and Mostly Mozart, and worked with conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Evgeny Svetlanov, and Leif Segerstam. Highlights include performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra in Paris and London, Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and appearances at the London Proms, where he has played both Grieg’s and Ligeti’s piano concertos.

Thanks to an insatiable musical appetite and a stupendous technique, he has acquired a vast repertoire that ranges from J. S. Bach to Ligeti, with an emphasis on works by Debussy, Busoni, Szymanowski, and Rachmaninoff. Often immersed in large-scale projects, he recently performed the complete cycles of Beethoven’s piano sonatas and Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage.

Always in great demand as a chamber player, Mr. Pöntinen has worked with artists of distinction like Barbara Hendricks, Nobuko Imai, Martin Fröst, Ulf Wallin, Håkan Hardenberger, Christian Lindberg, and Nicolai Gedda. He has performed solo recitals at The Frick Collection in New York as well as London’s Wigmore Hall and the Verbier Festival.

His latest album features works by Otilie Suková and Leoš Janáček, released by European Gramophone, adding to an extensive discography of more than 100 recordings. Mr. Pöntinen is additionally active as a composer; his Blue Winter was performed by The Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch at Carnegie Hall in 1998.

Mr. Pöntinen is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, most recently earning its 2024 Interpretation Prize. He is also the recipient of Litteris et Artibus, a Swedish royal medal awarded in recognition of eminent skills in the arts.

For more information, visit rolandpontinen.com.