Biography
Astrid Nordstad (1990) is a Norwegian mezzo-soprano born in Trondheim. Well-known in her home country as a recipient of the Tom Wilhelmsen Opera Prize 2022, the most important prize of its kind in Norway, she is making her way onto the operatic and concert stages in Europe.
In the 2023/24 season, she will return to the Royal Opera in Copenhagen to sing the role of Olga in Onegin. At Norwegian National Opera, she will sing Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and revive the role of Tisbe in La Cenerentola. On the concert stage, she will sings her first Wesendock-Lieder by Wagner at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele with the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Marc Minkowski and she will sing the part of Cleofe in Händel’s La Resurrezione with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre in Aix-en-Provence and at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. She will make her debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam singing Bruckner’s Mass in f minor with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra led by Sascha Goetzel, and will sing Händel’s Messiah with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, among other concert engagements.
In the 2022/23 season, she appeared as Olga in Onegin and as Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town at Norwegian National Opera, as Tisbe in La Cenerentola at the Royal Danish Opera, and as Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte at Bergen National Opera. Her concert highlights were Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with the Arctic Philharmonic and Mahler’s Symphony no. 3 with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla and Marc Soustrot, and Das Lied von der Erde with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León.
She recently debuted the title role of Carmen with the Helgeland Sinfonietta, Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress at the Oslo Opera Festival, and Rossini in Il barbiere di Siviglia for Ringsakeroperaen. Other recent highlights include Ravel’s Shéhérazade with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra led by Marc Soustrot, Mahler’s Lied von der Erde with the Kristiansund Symphony Orchestra, a performance at the Kirsten Flagstad 125 year memorial concert, and Mahler's Rückert-Lieder with the Danish Chamber Orchestra led by Ádám Fischer. From 2018-2020 she was a member of the Norwegian National Opera Young Artists’ Programme, where she performed Maddalena in Rigoletto and Badessa in Suor Angelica, Mercedes in Carmen, Masha in Queen of Spades and Tisbe in La Cenerentola.
As an active concert singer, Astrid has performed the solo part in works such as Händels Messiah, the Johannes Passion and Weihnachts Oratorium of Bach, and works such as Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and the Rückert-Lieder. As a recitalist, she has sung recitals at Grieg’s birth house, and is featured on a recording of Peter Heise: The Song Edition Condensed. In her native Norway she is a highly sought-after performer of Griegs Haugtussa song cycle.
Raised in the city of Trondheim, her first musical experiences where in the Nidaros Cathedral Girls' Choir. She moved to Oslo to study singing at the Norwegian academy of Music, where she was chosen to participate in the prestigious opera program at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (ONAA). She went on to study at the Opera Academy in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she was coached by the renowned voice teacher Susanna Eken. In 2019 she reached the semi-finals of the Queen Sonja International Music Competition in Oslo, where she was awarded the Ingrid Bjoner Scholarship as the best Norwegian participant that year.