German soprano Serafina Starke made her operatic debut at the age of 13 as Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. Much has happened since then: in 2023, she debuted at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival in Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten under the baton of Kirill Petrenko and at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich as Queen of the Night in the children’s opera Max und die Superheld:innen. In 2024, she appeared as Oriana in Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula at the Handel Festival in Halle.
Serafina Starke is currently a member of the International Opera Studio at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden. In the summer of 2022, she participated in the Salzburg Festival’s Young Singers Project, returning the following year as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro.
Serafina Starke as a concert singer
Extensive repertoire
Serafina Starke’s concert repertoire includes Mozart’s Requiem and Exsultate, jubilate, as well as Haydn’s Creation. In 2023, she performed the first soprano solo in Mozart’s Mass in C minor with the Orquestra Simfònica de les Illes Balears and the soprano solo in Verdi’s Te Deum (Quattro pezzi sacri) at the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Riccardo Muti. She has worked with the Berlin Philharmonic and with esteemed conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Raphaël Pichon, and Leopold Hager.
Awards and recognitions
An accomplished Lied singer, she was awarded 3rd prize at the Paula-Salomon-Lindberg Competition Das Lied alongside pianist Rebeka Stojkoska.
Serafina Starke is a fellow of the Yehudi-Menuhin-Foundation Salzburg and the Gianna-Szel-Foundation. She won the Dostal Operetta Competition in 2022 and the Fritz-Wunderlich-Prize in 2021. Most recently, she received the Sweet Spot Award at the 2024 ARD Competition in Munich.
