Heike Wessels

(mezzosoprano)

EDUCATION AND WORK 
Born near Münster, Germany, Heike Wessels completed her vocal studies at Folkwang-Hochschule Essen and Conservatoire National de Strasbourg. Her masterclasses with Brigitte Fassbaender, Irwin Gage, Dame Gwyneth Jones and Thomas Hampson were key influences for her further development. In 2006, she won First Prize at the Fifth International Wagnerian Voices Competition in Venice. She was engaged as cover at the Glyndebourne Festival (Brangäne in “Tristan und Isolde”) and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden (Venus in “Tannhäuser”). Having been an ensemble member at the Wuppertal and Braunschweig Opera Houses, Heike Wessels was a member of the Mannheim Nationaltheater ensemble from 2008 until 2018; in Mannheim she had her role debuts in all Wagnerian roles of her Fach but also sang major roles of the Italian and French dramatic mezzo repertoire. She has also sung in Deutsche Oper Berlin, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Oper Frankfurt, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Bavarian State Opera, Opéra Bastille, Volksoper Wien, Oper Bonn, Essen’s Aalto Theatre, Theater Dortmund, Oper Graz and Staatstheater Mainz among others and cooperated with many renowned conductors.

REPERTOIRE
Kundry (Wagner’s “Parsifal”)
Ortrud (Wagner’s “Lohengrin”)
Venus (Wagner’s “Tannhäuser)
Brünnhilde (Wagner’s “Die Walküre”)
Ulrica (Verdi’s “Un ballo in Maschera”)
Eboli (Verdi’s “Don Carlo”)
Amneris (Verdi’s “Aida”)
Dalila (Camille Saint-Saëns “Samson et Dalila”)
Santuzza (Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana”)
Herodias (Strauss’ “Salomé”)
Agaue (Henze’s “Die Bassariden”)
Leokadja Begbick (Weill’s “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny”)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With vocal versatility and powerful stage presence Heike Wessels impresses in international opera and concert productions: in 2023 The Daegu Opera Festival awarded her performance of Herodias in Strauss’ “Salomé”, in 2025 she was invited to cover the part of Kundry in Glyndebourne’s new “Parsifal” production, returned to Taiwan as Ortrud in “Lohengrin” at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts and sang Dvořák’s Stabat Mater in Cologne’s Philharmonie.

In 2024, released her Brahms-Album Durch ewige Räume reminiscent of mezzo-soprano Amalie Joachim, the leading Brahms interpreter of the composer's lifetime (Label primTON, Berlin)