Biography

Praised as an “intense, concentrated artist” (Opera News) and for her “generous tone” (Opera Magazine), soprano Magdalena Anna Hofmann has earned acclaim on international opera and concert stages. Her repertoire encompasses major German, Slavic and Italian heroines, alongside Mozart, operetta and a wide range of modern and contemporary works.

In the 2026/27 season, she makes her role debut as Ortrud in Lohengrin at Ópera de Tenerife and returns to the roles of Marie in Wozzeck at the Ljubljana Festival under Charles Dutoit, Isolde in Tristan und Isolde at Ljubljana Opera, and Brünnhilde in Siegfried at Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. Further future engagements include her role debut as the Färberin in a new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten at Aalto-Theater Essen and Brünnhilde in a new staging of Die Walküre at Oper Graz.

Performances in the 2025/26 season included her role debut as Elektra in a new production at Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, returned as Sieglinde in Die Walküre and Brünnhilde in Siegfried at the Budapest Wagner Days, and sang Marie in Wozzeck at the Beijing Music Festival and Shanghai Symphony Hall. On the concert platform, she performed Kundry in Act II of Parsifal with The Mahler Players in Inverness, sang Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder with the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra and Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, and gave a recital with Michael Schade and Vinzenz Praxmarer at the Horizonte Landeck Festival.

In 2024/25, she made her acclaimed role debut as Marie in Wozzeck at Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Ghent, earning praise for her “remarkable commitment and an equally striking timbre” (Diapason). That season also saw her appear in a new production of Tristan und Isolde at Staatstheater Darmstadt, where critics praised her “sublime Isolde” (Frankfurter Neue Presse), and in several concerts at Müpa Budapest.

Other recent engagements have taken her to the Semperoper Dresden as Sarai in the world premiere of Torsten Rasch’s Die andere Frau, the Foreign Princess in Rusalka and Giulietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann; Oper Köln as Brünnhilde in an abridged version of Götterdämmerung; Staatsoper Hannover as Isolde and the Foreign Princess; Theater an der Wien for Schönberg’s Freitag, der 13.; Ópera de Tenerife as the Foreign Princess; and Staatstheater Saarbrücken as Giorgetta in Il tabarro and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre. She also performed Das Buch der hängenden Gärten at the Konzerthaus Wien and Festspielhaus Bregenz. Further appearances include Leonore in Fidelio at Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier in Salzburg, Brünnhilde in Siegfried at the Budapest Wagner Days and in Die Walküre in Klagenfurt, Isolde at the International May Festival Wiesbaden, Sieglinde with the Cracow Philharmonic and in Tianjin, Kundry in Mondparsifal Beta 9–23 at the Berliner Festspiele, and the title role in Hubay’s Anna Karenina at Bern Opera. Her concert engagements have included Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang and Weill’s Silbersee-Gesänge with the Warsaw Philharmonic, as well as Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder in Porto.

Earlier engagements included the Woman in Erwartung and Senta in Der fliegende Holländer at the Royal Danish Opera; Mondparsifal alpha 1–8 at the Wiener Festwochen; Erwartung at the Berlin Philharmonie, Birmingham Symphony Hall and in Bern; and appearances as Senta and the Foreign Princess at Aalto-Theater Essen and Bonn Opera. She also sang Elsa in Lohengrin at Cēsis Concert Hall in Latvia and Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder and Isoldes Liebestod at Casa da Música in Porto. At Opéra de Lyon, she appeared in Schönberg’s Erwartung and Von heute auf morgen, Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero and Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna, and made her role debut as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, later returning as Carlotta in Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten. She also portrayed Portia in André Tchaikowsky’s The Merchant of Venice at the Bregenz Festival and made her acclaimed role debut as Kundry in Parsifal at the Estonian National Opera in Tallinn.

Born in Warsaw in 1979, Hofmann studied singing in Vienna and began her career as a mezzo-soprano, appearing at Teatro alla Scala, Theater an der Wien and the Bregenz Festival. She has worked with conductors including Michael Boder, Sylvain Cambreling, Frédéric Chaslin, Gaetano d’Espinosa, Bertrand de Billy, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Ádám Fischer, Riccardo Frizza, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Hartmut Keil, Lothar Königs, Bernhard Kontarsky, Tomáš Netopil, Kazushi Ono, Alejo Pérez, Kirill Petrenko, Patrick Summers, Constantin Trinks and Simone Young. Her collaborations with stage directors include David Bösch, Stéphane Braunschweig, Valentina Carrasco, Frank Castorf, Lotte de Beer, William Friedkin, John Fulljames, Gerd Heinz, Keith Warner, Àlex Ollé (La Fura dels Baus), Nicola Raab, Daniel Slater, Peter Stein and Walter Sutcliffe.

October 2026