Karis TUCKER

Karis Tucker is an American mezzo-soprano known for her “sympathetic colours and tone . . . further enriched by a burning fierceness.” (Opera Today). In the 2025-2026 season, Ms. Tucker is set to make her debut as Waltraute in Bayreuther Festspiele's 150th anniversary production of Die Walküre. This season brought two exciting role debuts as Eboli in Don Carlo at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Charlotte in Werther with the Korea National Opera. Ms. Tucker also reprised the roles of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Prinz Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, and Flosshilde, Rossweisse, Zweite Norn and Wellgunde in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Upcoming engagements for 2026-2027 include Ms. Tucker’s Metropolitan Opera debut as Blumenmädchen in Parsifal, role debuts as Nancy Tang, First Secretary to Mao in Nixon in China, and Tebaldo in Don Carlo at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and returning to the roles of Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflöte, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, Polina in Pique Dame, and Mercédès in Carmen with the company.

Ms. Tucker is in her seventh season at Deutsche Oper Berlin where she started in the 2019-2020 season as Stipendiatin, as the winner of the 2019 Curt Engelhorn Scholarship awarded by the Opera Foundation in New York. Previous role debuts with the company include Smeton in Anna Bolena, Fenena in Nabucco, Polina in Pique Dame, Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflote, and the mezzo-soprano solo part in Verdi’s Requiem with Staatsballett Berlin.

The 2024-2025 season brought her Korea National Opera debut as Princesse Clarice in Prokofiev's L’amour des trois oranges and a reprise of Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel at Grand Teton Music Festival. Ms. Tucker’s recent concert work includes Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with Mainfranken Theater Würzburg, Duruflé’s Requiem at the Dresdner Philharmonie, and the alto solo in Frank Martin's Das Märchen vom Aschenbrödel with Association L’Odyssée Frank Martin in Geneva. In 2025, Ms. Tucker also took her critically acclaimed interpretation of Thurza in Ethyl Smyth’s The Wreckers to the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin. She has performed the role with Glyndebourne Festival, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and Staatstheater Meiningen. Regarding her performance at Glyndebourne, Forum Opera writes: “Karis Tucker burns up the stage (in every sense of the word . . . ) and magnificently embodies the many facets of the ultimately complex character of Thurza: lover, disgusted wife, free-spirit (with thick skin), and above all, the incarnation of justice within a community that has completely gone astray. The mezzo-soprano pulls off this particularly heavy and tense role to the end with no apparent fatigue.”

Raised and educated in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, she completed her Master of Music in Voice in the United States at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. In 2018 she was a Gerdine Young Artist at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and in 2019, an Apprentice Artist at Des Moines Metro Opera.