Trivia

In addition to opera, Yvonne also enjoyed a distinguished career on the concert and lied stage. She was in high demand as an interpreter of major orchestral works, such as those by Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg (including as the Wood Dove in the Gurre-Lieder). Her musical work was characterised by intense textual interpretation, tonal depth and a powerful dramatic presence.

Throughout her career, she worked with the most renowned conductors and orchestras and leaving behind a diverse recording legacy. Since August 2014, Yvonne was also a highly regarded and committed vocal coach at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), where she has passed on her wealth of stage experience to today's young generation of singers.

She achieved her international breakthrough in 1994 in a new production of the opera Anna Bolena by Gaetano Donizetti as Giovanna Seymour at the Monte-Carlo Opera House and in 1995 with the role of Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach at La Scala in Milan.

She had a particularly long-standing artistic partnership with the Zurich Opera House, where she performed central Verdi and Wagner roles (including Azucena, Ulrica and Kundry) as well as French and Russian repertoire.

Yvonne Naef was a Swiss opera and concert singer with a dramatic mezzo-soprano voice who studied in Zurich, Basel and Mannheim. Highly regarded above all for her interpretations in the late Romantic and dramatic repertoire, she gained international acclaim with roles such as Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde), Kundry (Parsifal), Fricka (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Eboli (Don Carlo) and Mrs Quickly (Falstaff), which she sang at major opera houses including the Opéra de Paris, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Vienna State Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and renowned festivals such as Bayreuth and Salzburg.