Sellier, Waldhart, Sokolik, Lichtenstein, Zehe, Oper Halle Chorus, Händelfestspielorchestra Halle & Michael Hofstetter
Biography Sellier, Waldhart, Sokolik, Lichtenstein, Zehe, Oper Halle Chorus, Händelfestspielorchestra Halle & Michael Hofstetter
Robert Sellier
Born in Munich, tenor Robert Sellier received his initial singing lessons at the Bayerische Singakademie and subsequently studied in Augsburg. First engagements took him to the Salzburger Festspiele and the Komische Oper Berlin, and from 2007 to 2013 he sang in the ensemble of the Gärtnerplatztheater. In addition to his opera appearances, Sellier is also passionately involved in the activities of the Aufsichtsrat der Theater, Oper und Orchester GmbH (TOOH). He regularly performs in the concert series of the Staatskapelle Halle and the Händelfestspielorchester Halle.
Vanessa Waldhart
Winner of the 21st International Ferruccio Tagliavini Singing Competition, where she also received the ‘Dame Joan Sutherland’ Prize, as well as the Eva Kleinitz Award at the 9th CLIP competition, soprano Vanessa Waldhart has performed across Europe, including at The Grange Festival in the UK, Sarajevo National Theatre, Festival of German Language, Musikverein in Vienna, the Handel Festival in Halle and as member of the ensemble at Oper Halle.
Waldhart studied at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, and attended masterclasses with Christa Ludwig, Brigitte Fassbaender and Edita Gruberová. She has worked with conductors such as René Jacobs, Christian Curnyn and Attilio Cremonesi.
Yulia Sokolik
studied at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music in Moscow and the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. She is a scholarship holder of the Walter und Charlotte Hamel Stiftung and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence Mozart Academy, and a winner of numerous international competitions.
From 2012 to 2014 she was a member of the Opera Studio of the Bayerische Staatsoper. She has also appeared as a guest at Oper Leipzig and the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik. She has been a member of the ensemble at Oper Halle since 2019/20.
The Oper Halle Chorus
was founded between 1811 and 1836 as a theatre choir. Its extensive and stylistically diverse repertoire includes world premiere performances, such as the opera-oratorio Sky Disc – Himmelsscheibe – Disc del cel and Johannes Kreidler’s Mein Staat als Freund und Geliebte, as well as the Handel operas and oratorios that are performed during the annual Händel-Festspiele. The choir has also performed in musicals including The Scarlet Pimpernel (with recording), The Three Musketeers and Sweeney Todd.
Since the 1980s, the choir has increasingly demonstrated its skills in major concert performances, and has performed Haydn’s The Creation, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem and Britten’s War Requiem, among others. The choir also demonstrates its wide-ranging repertoire in its own concerts, whether with the Staatskapelle Halle, organ accompaniment or a cappella, and members of the opera choir take on solo roles in musical theatre productions, as well as in the city’s concert and church music scenes.
Michael Hofstetter
Munich native Michael Hofstetter’s career spans over 30 years, within which time he has appeared as a conductor at the Bayerische Staatsoper and the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen, as well as in Paris, London and Houston, among others. He has served as chief conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, Styriarte Festspiel-Orchester, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester and the Ludwigsburg Castle Festival Orchestra, and has been the artistic director of the Gluck Festspiele in Nuremberg since 2020.
Hofstetter has been nominated as Conductor of the Year in Opernwelt magazine several times, and he regularly performs at the Handel Festivals in Karlsruhe and Halle. He was awarded the Robert Stolz medal for his commitment to operetta, and his work at the Ludwigsburg Castle Festival was honoured with the Horst Stein Prize.
