Sophie KIDWELL

Mezzo-soprano Sophie Kidwell is praised in the German, Austrian and Swiss press for her “voluminous, velvety-smooth and elegant voice” (Opera Gazet), and is hailed as “a name opera fans should remember” (The Prickle). In the 2025-2026 season, Ms. Kidwell will make her debut as Olga in Eugene Onegin with Theater Aachen, as well as her debut as Bertarido in Rodelina with Stadttheater Bühnen Bern. Praised for making an “extremely attractive, erotic” Maddalena (Opera Gazet) in 2023, Ms. Kidwell will reprise the role in Rigoletto with Opéra de Lausanne this season. She will also sing with the Basel University Choir as a guest soloist in Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, as well as Dvorák’s Stabat Mater with the Bern Symphony Orchestra, and later as a soloist in The Music Makers (Elgar) with the Basel Stadtcasino. In the following 2026-2027 season, Ms. Kidwell will join the soloist ensemble at the Stadttheater Bühnen Bern, where she looks forward to various important Handel and Mozart role debuts. Earlier in the season, Ms. Kidwell rejoined Theater Basel in one of her signature roles, as Carmen in Carmen, where she was described as masterfully “rotating between pride, self-confidence and grandiosity like a roulette wheel” (Amtsblatt Ettlingen), as well as debuting Flora in La traviata. An accomplished singer in the concert repertoire, Ms. Kidwell sang as mezzo-soprano soloist in a new semi-staged work commissioned by FIFA, Die Tiefe des Raumes: A Football Oratorio (Moritz Eggert) with the Basel Sinfornietta and Theater Basel Chorus. The piece for orchestra, choir, soloists and spoken narrators tells the life story of a footballer, from the field to the Super League, where Ms. Kidwell sang as Das Laster, or “The Vice”.

While she was a Studio Artist with Theater Basel, she debuted roles in many of their productions and fostered a relationship with the theater that continues to thrive. Ms. Kidwell sang as the Forester’s Wife in The Cunning Little Vixen, Frédéric in Mignon, Florinda in Into the Woods, and Maddalena in Rigoletto, all with Theater Basel. Most notably during her time there, she sang in her first Ring Cycle as a “magnificent” Flosshilde (Online Merker) in Das Rheingold, Flosshilde in Götterdämmerung, and Grimgerde in Die Walküre, where she was described as “among the best Valkyrie octets […] heard in many years… glorious!” (Online Merker). Ms. Kidwell also sang as the soloist for a unique staged version of Mozart’s Requiem with Theater Basel.

Ms. Kidwell sang numerous performances with Landestheater Linz for their 2022-2023 season. She sang as Plantina in Melusina (Conradin Kreutzer), Lehrbube in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel. She was called a “cheeky, playful, […] melancholically soaring” Wanda (Oö Nachrichten) in Anna Wenzel’s adaptation of the children’s book Wanda Walfisch, featuring pieces by Renaissance masters. Following her critically acclaimed debut in the role of Carmen with Schlossfestspiele Ettlingen, Ms. Kidwell was engaged to sing the title role again in the Austrian premiere of La Tragédie de Carmen (adaptation by Marius Constant) as Carmen, in which she had “brilliant vocal control” (Kronen Zeitung). Known for her mastery of the voice, Ms. Kidwell also sang with Landestheater Linz as Mago in Rinaldo and as Treszka in Ein Herbstmanöver (Emmerich Kálmán), where “she effortlessly scaled all the heights!” (Online Merker)

Foreshadowing her latest ring cycle, she sang a Blumenmädchen in Parsifal with The Richard Wagner Association in 2019. Ms. Kidwell joined the company of Opernfest Berlin, where she sang as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro and as Ottone in L’incoronazione di Poppea. She also sang as Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro and as Erster Herr in Martinü’s Juliette while studying at the Hochschule für Musik Hannover. On the competition circuit, Ms. Kidwell was named the Young Welsh Singer of the Year in 2024, and earlier in 2025, was a Finalist in the 43rd International Belvedere Singing Competition. She has extensive concert experience, particularly in the baroque and classical eras, having sung various Bach cantatas including his Christmas Oratorio, Choral Fantasy (Beethoven), both Mozart and Duruflé Requiems, the Messiah (Handel), Stabat Mater (Haydn) and the Nelson Mass (Haydn).