Biography  

Soprano Birgit Beer spent her childhood in the “city of music and opera” – Vienna! After just one year of studies with Renate Holm and Hanna Ludwig, Birgit was offered her debut as Papagena (Magic Flute) at the opera house in Augsburg.

She then moved on to the ensemble of the Wiener Volksoper, performing Princess Helene (Walzertraum), Nuri (Tiefland) and Olympia (Les contes d’Hoffmann) together with Nicolai Geda and Alfredo Kraus.

Appearances in Dresden and a contract at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz followed, where she played major roles, including Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos), Rosina (Barber of Seville), Blondchen (Abduction from the Seraglio), Queen of the Night (Magic Flute), Despina (Cosi fan tutte) and Valencienne (Merry Widow). 

Birgit was an ensemble member at the Oper Bonn at the time of Gian Carlo del Monaco. She was entrusted with all the major lyric coloratura roles, such as Lisette (La Rondine) in the highly acclaimed production of Marta Domingo, as well as Sophie in Götz Friedrich’s prizewinning Rosenkavalier.

In the 1997/ 98 season, she joined the Aalto Theater in Essen, singing Fiakermilli (Arabella), Pamina (Magic Flute), Musette (La Bohème), Marzelline (Fidelio) as well as Constance (Les Dialogues des Carmelites). 

Strongly in demand as a guest, Birgit has performed at all the major opera houses in Europe. Her celebrated interpretation of Pamina has taken her to Vienna, Bonn, Munich, Hamburg and Bern.

Sir Georg Solti invited her to take part in his production of Frau ohne Schatten at the Salzburg Easter and Summer Festival, where she also sang Ännchen (Freischütz in 1997). She has appeared in Verona, Liege, Antwerp, Milan, Marrakesh, Copenhagen, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig, Paris, the Nationaltheater in Munich, the Staatsoper in Vienna and regularly at the Semperoper Dresden. 

A highly acclaimed performance of Mozart’s C minor Mass at the Rudolfinum took her to Prague and she appeared at the Oper in Frankfurt as Princess Helene (Walzertraum) and as Kunigunde in Louis Spohr’s Faust at the Kölner Oper under the baton of Ralf Weikert. She also gave an evening of arias at the music festival Musica Mallorca. 

Michaela in Carmen soon became one of her signature roles, a part that she embodied at the Bayerische Staatsoper, conducted by Roberto Abbado, as well as in Berlin, Hamburg, Weimar, Chemnitz, Dresden, the Opera festival in St. Margarethen in Austria and Stefano Podas’ exciting production at the opera house in Guatemala. 

Birgit has travelled to South America on a regular basis and has debuted some of her most important roles there. Nanetta in Verdi’s Falstaff and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni were both seen in new productions at the Guatemala City Opera; and The Teatro Nacional Costa Rico invited Birgit for her first Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust as well as her first Fiordeligi (Cosi fan tutte).

In 2005 she toured the continent with prestigious concerts being held in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. 

One of her other celebrated roles is the part of Traviata, enthusing audiences at many venues and cities including Philharmonie in Munich, Schwetzingen, Basel, Osnabrück, Munich and Graz.

Austria and Vienna remain a focal point for Birgit and she enjoyed returning to the Wiener Volksoper as Countess Gabriela (Wiener Blut) for several seasons. In two consecutive years she sang one of Parsifal’s Flowermaidens at the Richard Wagner Festival in Wels, and Dennis Russell Davies invited her to be his Marzelline in Fidelio in a concert performance with the Brucknerorchester Linz.

She also champions Viennese operetta and is a keen ambassador of the form, singing Adele (Fledermaus), Valencienne (Lustige Witwe), Countess Gabriele (Wiener Blut), and arias from Vogelhändler, Nacht in Venedig, Die schöne Galatee,Walzertraum, Land des Lächelns in Amsterdam and Arnhem and at a regular open air gala in London. These heroines and arias are also a vital part of her Viennese concert series or the evenings with her own ensembles with programmes reaching from Belcanto to Broadway, from Opera and Operetta to Musical. 

Her rich discography includes Wagner’s Die Feen, Strauss’ Frau ohne Schatten, Mozart’s Magic Flute und Haydn’s Creation as well as an album with the conductor Anton Guadago.

She has made regular appearances on German television, in shows such as Heimat in der Ferne with Dagmar Berghoff, Lieben Sie Klassik? with Justus Frantz, Karl Heinz Böhm’s Charity Gala Menschen für Menschen and an UNICEF gala hosted by Placido Domingo filmed in Vienna. 

Birgit now lives in London where she devotes a lot of time to her concerts for the Rotary Club (of which she is an honorary member), the Chelsea Pensioners and several other charitable organisations for which she has set up galas at the Grosvenor House. She enjoys the London museums and galleries following her other love, history of art, which she studied alongside music. A keen yogi for many years she is now training to be yoga instructor to complement her ongoing concert activities in London and abroad.