Swedish soprano Kerstin Avemo studied at the University College of Opera in Stockholm and has established an international career with a repertoire ranging from Mozart and bel canto to contemporary opera.
She made her debut at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1999 as Jenny in Boieldieu’s La Dame blanche and has since sung roles including Adèle in Die Fledermaus, Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande, Gilda in Rigoletto and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute. In 2018, she sang the role of Leilah/Lilith in the world premiere of Johan S. Bohlin’s Tristessa. In autumn 2026, she returns to the Royal Swedish Opera to sing the leading role of Justine in Melancholia.
Avemo appears regularly on international opera and concert stages and has performed at venues including the Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Hamburg, Teatro Real in Madrid, La Monnaie in Brussels, Theater an der Wien, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Bregenzer Festspiele and the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen. She has worked with directors including Christoph Marthaler, Romeo Castellucci, Michael Haneke, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Stefan Herheim and Calixto Bieito.
She has a long-standing relationship with the Göteborg Opera, where her roles have included Violetta in La traviata, the title role in Lulu, Mimì in La bohème, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, Elle in La voix humaine, as well as Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann. In 2021, she created a production of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, based on her own concept and directed by Avemo herself.
Contemporary music has a prominent place in Avemo’s repertoire. She has performed in Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel and sung the title role in Toshio Hosokawa’s Hanjo. Hosokawa later wrote Futari Shizuka for Avemo; the work received its world premiere at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2017 and has since been performed in cities including Tokyo, Cologne and New York.
Kerstin Avemo has been awarded the Litteris et Artibus medal for outstanding artistic contributions as an opera singer, as well as Tidskriften Opera’s Prize, Svenska Dagbladet’s Opera Prize and the Sten A Olsson Culture Scholarship.
