Through her six consecutive years as Bayreuth’s Brunnhilde the British Dramatic Soprano Catherine Foster is becoming well known for her interpretation of Brunnhilde along with her other dramatic roles Elektra, Turandot and Isolde across Europe and the world.

Catherine Foster quickly went on to the major houses in Germany as well as onto international stages, including the Bayreuth Festival, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo, Washington DC, Budapest, Amsterdam, Liceu, to name but a few.


Born in Nottingham UK, she always had a burn to sing but coming from a non-musical background first qualified and worked as a nurse and midwife. Her yearn to sing professionally continued till she found her teacher, Pamela Cook MBE, who encouraged her to go to university.

Finishing her studies in 1999 Catherine Foster started in Weimar in 2001 where she developed fast into the dramatic repertoire She was soon being asked to sing as guest in other houses such as the Semperoper Dresden, making her house debut there in 2006


Catherine’s extraordinarily fast development from her first role of the Queen of the Night to the Ring as Brunnhilde by summer 2008 and onto the centenary Bayreuth production of the Ring in 2013 with Kirill Petrenko conducting shows an unwavering commitment to her art.

2014 Catherine was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for her work as an international singer. Recently she was awarded the Reginald Goodall award in 2018 for her devotion to the works of Richard Wagner by the London Wagner society.


Catherine has had the privilege to work with conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Marek Janowski, Adam Fisher, Philip Auguin, Simone Young, Sir Donald Runnicles and Daniel Barenboim.

Upcoming new roles for Catherine include Färberin in “Die Frau ohne Schatten“ with National Theater Mannheim, her debut back in the UK as a Dramatic soprano singing Elektra with the Bournemouth Symphony and Kiril Karabits and her debut in two new houses in Italy and Bulgaria. Future engagements will see Catherine returning to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Köln, Mannheim, Wiesbaden and Forum am Schlosspark Ludwigsburg.