Soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer. Photo by Arielle Doneson.
Bio
The Seattle Times heralded Wendy Bryn Harmer as “a standout Senta with a big, radiant voice” in Der fliegende Holländer. She makes her role debut as Isolde in Tristan und Isolde in her debut with Opera North in the 2026-27 season. She also returns to Senta in Der fliegende Holländer in her debut with Atlanta Opera and returns to the Teatro Municipal de Santiago as Chrysothemis in Elektra. Future seasons see her return to the Metropolitan Opera. Last season, she returned to Leonore in Fidelio with Utah Opera in addition to singing Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony with the Oregon Symphony and Cornelius’ Stabat Mater with the American Symphony Orchestra. She also returned to the Metropolitan Opera roster for its production of Turandot.
Sought-after in German repertoire, she has sung previous performances of Senta in Der fliegende Holländer with Staatsoper Hamburg,Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Seattle Opera, and Utah Opera. She also recently excelled as Chrysothemis in Elektra with the Metropolitan Opera; Leonore in Fidelio with Opera Omaha and Boston Baroque; the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos with Palm Beach Opera; and Eglantine in von Weber’s rarely-performed Euryanthe at Bard Summerscape. She previously joined Seattle Opera as well as the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Detroit Opera, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival for operas the comprise Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Her countless previous performances within the epic work encompass the roles of Sieglinde, Gerhilde, and Orltinde in Die Walküre—as well as having covered Brünnhilde; Freia in Das Rheingold; and Gutrune and Third Norn in Götterdämmerung.
In other repertoire, Ms. Harmer recently made a thrilling role debut as Turandot with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She has sung Adalgisa in Norma, also at Palm Beach Opera, Kitty Hart in Dead Man Walking at the Metropolitan Opera, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus with Houston Grand Opera, Fata Morgana in The Love for Three Oranges with Opera Philadelphia, Desdemona in Otello with the Kalamazoo Symphony, Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw and Marilyn in Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith’s The Righteous with Santa Fe Opera, Susan B. Anthony in The Mother of Us All at Chautauqua Opera, Wanda in La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito with Opera Boston, Elle in La voix humaine with Utah Opera, and Mimì in La bohème at the Utah Festival Opera.
A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she has returned to the company’s famed stage countless other times in Parsifal, Die Ägyptische Helena, War and Peace, Khovanshchina, and Le nozze di Figaro. Her performances in Die Zauberflöte, as well as the Ring Cycle, have been released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon following the company’s Live in HD broadcasts. She has also joined the company for its productions of Fidelio, Ariadne auf Naxos, Iolanta, Lohengrin, Der fliegende Holländer, Norma, Jenůfa, Rusalka, Pique Dame, La clemenza di Tito, and Don Giovanni.
On the concert stage, Wendy Bryn Harmer has sung Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the San Francisco Symphony and Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Verdi’s Requiem with Orlando Opera, and Ravel’s Shéhérazade with the Utah Symphony. With Gemma New conducing the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, she sang Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915. She joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for its Schubert Festival and, at Lincoln Center, performed as a soloist in its Tribute to Renata Tebaldi. She made her New York recital debut under the auspices of The Marilyn Horne Foundation, and was presented by the George London Foundation in a recital with Ben Heppner at the Morgan Library.
