Linda Watson is an American dramatic soprano. She made her career based in Germany where she began as a mezzo-soprano at the Theater Aachen. She has performed worldwide, including at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera and the Bayreuth Festival. She focused on dramatic roles by Wagner and Strauss, as well as Turandot. She was awarded the title Kammersängerin in Germany in 2004 and in Austria in 2020. Watson began her stage career as a mezzo-soprano at the Theater Aachen in 1992, followed by an engagement at the Aalto Theatre in Essen in 1995, combined with a guest contract at the Leipzig Opera, where she performed Wagnerian roles such as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde and Venus in Tannhäuser. She became a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in 1997. The same year, she first appeared as Venus at the Vienna State Opera, and a year later as Kundry in Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival, conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli. From 2000 to 2005, she portrayed Ortrud in Lohengrin at Bayreuth.

From 2006 to 2010, she sang all three Brünnhilde roles in Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival, and also performed these roles in the new production at the Vienna State Opera, earning a solo Grammy Nomination. She subsequently appeared as Brünnhilde at many of the world’s great opera houses, including at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, even in a nine-hour compilation of all the Ring in one day. She added more dramatic roles to her repertoire, including Isolde, Elektra, and both the Dyer’s Wife and the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten. The credibility of her portrayals and her vocal bravura led to engagements worldwide, in Munich, Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona, at La Scala in Milan, Florence, Bologna, Amsterdam, Los Angeles and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She has worked with a conductors including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Barenboim, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Antonio Pappano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Philippe Jordan, Ricardo Chailly, Axel Kober and Christian Thielemann. In 2013 and 2014, the singer returned to the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein to perform as Isolde, Marschallin, Elektra, Ariadne and Brünnhilde. At the Vienna State Opera, she was appointed Kammersängerin in January 2020. At La Scala in Milan, Linda Watson could be seen and heard in the 2020/21and 22/23 season as Herodias in Salome. In June of 2023 she sang the Amme in the San Francisco premiere of Hockney’s Frau Ohne Schatten under Donald Runnicles.

In addition, Linda Watson is a professor of voice at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, and performs master classes worldwide.

See Linda Watson perform Mahler’s Symphony No2 with the RSNO on 4 & 5 October 2024.