Roberta Alexander

(3 March 1949 – 14 October 2025)

With her luminous voice, her intense performances, her artistic skill and her fundamentally sympathetic nature, the American opera, concert and lieder singer Roberta Alexander has earned worldwide recognition. Coming from a musical family, she studied singing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and at the Royal Conservatory of Music in London. She made her debut at the Houston Grand Opera as Pamina – subsequently attracting attention primarily as a Mozart singer. Her repertoire was very diverse, ranging from early music (documented in recordings with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, for example) to Italian repertoire and operas by Strauss and Janáček. As a lieder singer, she has devoted herself to Mozart, Strauss, Barber and Bernstein, among others, and has sung in concerts including Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Ravel's Shéherazade. She has been a regular guest at renowned venues such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London and the state opera houses in Vienna, Hamburg and Berlin, as well as with leading orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Berlin audiences first got to know Roberta Alexander in 1982 as Mimi at the Komische Oper in Harry Kupfer's production of La Bohème. At the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, she impressed audiences in Patrice Chéreau's production of Elektra, singing the role of the Fifth Maid beautifully and embodying it powerfully in a whole series of performances since the premiere in 2016, mostly under the musical direction of Daniel Barenboim. She last appeared at the Staatsoper on 14 February this year – she was looking forward to further Elektra performances here at Unter den Linden. Now Roberta Alexander, who touched and thrilled her audience time and again in numerous performances, has passed away at the age of 76. The Staatsoper Unter den Linden will honour her memory.

The directors of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden