Meet Golda Schultz
South African. Soprano. Connecting people through music, one song at a time.
In the limelight of the world’s opera houses, one voice shines with particular brightness – that of the soprano Golda Schultz.
Where she began
Golda was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1983. Her mother is a retired nurse, and her father is a retired university professor of Mathematics. Golda studied journalism at Rhodes University before switching to singing at the University of Cape Town, and then at the Juilliard School in New York. In 2011, Golda won a place at the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, after which her career developed rapidly.
From her base in Germany she has conquered the world’s opera houses and concert halls, from the Vienna State Opera to the Salzburg Festival; and from La Scala, Milan, to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, to name but four.
Where she’s been
In 2020 Golda appeared at the Last Night of the Proms in London, and the following year the recording of Porgy and Bess, in which she portrayed the role of Clara, received a Grammy Award. In 2022 Golda was described as a “gifted soprano” when she received the Bavarian government’s Special Prize for Culture. She was also named Artiste Étoile by the Lucerne Festival the same year.
Her debut album with the pianist Jonathan Ware was likewise released in 2022: This Be Her Verse is devoted to female composers who until then had been ignored by music historians. Reviewers were enthusiastic: the Munich Merkur described it as “one of the most powerful lieder albums of the recent past”, while the Guardian welcomed it as a further demonstration of Golda’s versatility and musical intelligence. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung spoke of the soprano “singing with so much dramatic talent, such magnificent use of tone, colours, and such a feeling for swing that even Schubert and Schumann would have swallowed hard.” This album demonstrates Golda’s great love of lieder and concert singing, a world in which she is just as much at home as she is in the realm of opera.
Where she’s going
Golda’s plans for 2023/24 include Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic, and an appearance at the Dresden Staatskapelle’s New Year Concert, which will also be broadcast on German television.
Golda will take part in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Andris Nelsons as part of a major Arte project marking the bicentenary of the symphony’s first performance in 1824. Additionally, Golda will give recitals in Princeton; at the Bavarian State Opera; at the Schubert Club in Saint Louis; at the Schubertiade; and at the Barcelona Schubertiada.
As an opera singer, Golda will bid farewell to the role of Sophie in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, when she makes her Berlin State Opera House debut. This is a role in which she has enjoyed a number of major successes, and the goodbye will be bittersweet.
But it is Mozart who is central to her operatic repertory during the 2023/24 season. For the Zurich Opera she will appear as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni; while Vienna State Opera audiences will hear her as Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro. Golda will also make her Royal Opera House debut as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte. In the Spring of 2024, Golda’s second solo album - also devoted to Mozart - will appear on the Alpha label. Appearing with her is the Potsdam Chamber Academy under Antonello Manacorda.
Your Journey Shouldn't End Here
Follow me on social media to stay tuned on where I’m performing next.
