ChelseaZurflüh

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  • Soprano

About Chelsea

First Prize Winner of the Concours de Genève 2024 Main Prize (female voice) and Orchestra Prize Winner at the Junge Opernstars / Emmerich Smola Competition 2025

Chelsea’s 26/27 season sees her make a number of exciting debuts, including Dutch National Opera as Euridice Orfeo ed Euridice, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden as Marzelline Fidelio, and Gran Theatre del Liceu, Barcelona as Pamina Die Zauberflöte. She makes a major role debut as Lucia Lucia di Lammermoor at Theater Basel and also returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as a Flowermaiden Parsifal, and to Oper Köln as Pamina Die Zauberflöte. Her concert appearances include Theater Basel’s New Year Concert, and Laodice in a tour of Porpora’s Mitridate with Il Pomo d’Oro.

In the 2025/26 season, Chelsea made a sensational debut at the Royal Opera House with Pamina Die Zauberflöte, a role she debuted first at Oper Köln. She also made her house and role debut as Marie La fille du régiment at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, her long awaited return to Opernhaus Zürich for a first Sophie in Werther and another role and house debut as Zerlina and Soprano in the Kirill Serebrennikov creation of Don Giovanni / Requiem at Komische Oper Berlin. She appeared regularly on the concert scene, debuting with L'Orchestre de Chambre de Genève for Ethel Smyth's Der Wald, singing for the first time with il Pomo d'Oro for St. John Passion led by Maxim Emelyanychev and Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. She returned to the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg for Fünfte Magd Elektra with Alan Gilbert and made her UK debut for the Mozartists in a concert at Cadogan Hall.

Other recent engagements include Chelsea’s debut at the Handel Festspiele with the title role in Clori, Tirsi e Fileno and a role debut as Serpina in Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona at Theatre Biel-Solothurn. On the concert scene, she debuted with the Tonkünstler Orchestra, singing Handel's Messiah on tour, led by Ivor Bolton, Matthew Halls and Mozart's Requiem with Andreas Ottensamer at Stadttheater Wiener Neustadt. Chelsea closed the Philharmonie Luxembourg season with an outdoor gala alongside Joyce DiDonato led by Gustavo Gimeno, reopened the Classic Open Air series for Konzerthaus Berlin and sang a gala concert alongside Jonathan Tetelman at Schloss Neuschwanstein. She works regularly at the Tonhalle Zürich, and highlights this season there include a New Year's concert with Heiko Mathias Förster and the Zürcher Symphoniker and concerts to celebrate Mozart's birthday with CHAARTS Chamber Artists.

Chelsea is based in Biel, Switzerland

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Contact

Seb Mallet

Seb Mallet

Artist Manager
Charlotte Bateman

Charlotte Bateman

Assistant Artist Manager

Representation

Exclusive Worldwide Representation with Askonas Holt

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Season Highlights

Oct 2026
Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden
Parsifal (Flowermaiden)
Dec 2026
Oper Köln
Die Zauberflöte (Pamina)
Feb 2027
Dutch National Opera
Orfeo ed Euridice (Euridice)
Mar 2027
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
Fidelio (Marzelline)
Jun 2027
Theater Basel
Lucia di Lammermoor (Lucia Ashton)
Jul 2027
Gran Teatre del Liceu
Die Zauberflöte (Pamina)

Video

Photos

News

Press

  • Don Giovanni/Requiem

    Komische Oper Berlin
    Dec 2025

    • Chelsea Zurflüh delivers an even more striking portrayal of Zerlina: we clearly see here... how theatrical commitment, when it doesn't compromise musical integrity, helps the performers to deepen their roles.

  • Concours de Genève 2024

    Grand Théâtre de Genève
    Oct 2024

    • We are on the verge of this somewhat disillusioned and regretful reflection when the last competitor, the Swiss soprano Chelsea Marilyn Zurflüh (28 years old), enters. Grasping with determination the Cleopatra aria " Da tempeste il legno infranto " from Handel's Giulio Cesare , a refreshing draft runs through the audience. The voice is beautiful, the vocalises more than correct, the vocal opening powerful, everything in this voice enchants. The audience is not mistaken and applauds her admirable performance wildly. In Pamina's aria " Ach, ich fühl's " from Mozart's Die Zaubeflöte , we admire the sensitivity without mawkishness with which the soprano interprets this aria. In passing, she rewards us with high notes of great quality emerging as the natural continuity of the aria. Nothing is forced, everything is measured in the spirit of the text, in the impeccable line of song. Velvet. Here again, the audience exults. The soprano ends her passage with the perilous recitative and aria of Linda " Ah, tardai troppo…. O luce di quest'anima " from Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix . Playing with herself on stage, smiling, mischievous, she seems to play with the technical and vocal difficulties of this aria with an uncommon authority. In the rigorous freedom of her interpretation, Chelsea Marilyn Zurflüh brings in her wake the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande , which finally leaves its role of accompanist to become an integral part of the music being played on stage.

    • She's 28 years old, with an incredible presence - her body, her smile - and a voice as clear as spring water: on Tuesday, soprano Chelsea Marilyn Zurflüh won the final of the singing competition organised as part of the 78th Geneva International Music Competition, which this year was also open to composers. And she won by a landslide. She was already considered the favourite at the end of the semi-finals, when the three finalists were chosen to perform with the Orchestre de la Suisse romande on the Grand Théâtre stage, under the baton of conductor Alevtina Ioffe. Chelsea Marilyn Zurflüh owed her crown, in particular, to the exceptional quality of her high notes which she displayed in the aria "Ah! tardai troppo" from Donizetti's opera Linda di Chamounix , freed from the stridency which often strains the timbre at these altitudes. Notes attacked effortlessly, darted with an impressive power of projection and purity of intonation.

  • Heidi feiert Weihnachten

    Theater Orchester Biel Solothurn
    Dec 2023

    • Chelsea Marilyn Zurflüh can already be heard singing Donizetti's Lucia; her soprano has an expressiveness for her young age that is rightly recognized and promoted by major theaters. Zurflüh, as Heidi, nimbly masters the transitions from short cantilenas to parlando and finally to speech. Her performance as an unruly tomboy is authentic.

  • La fida ninfa

    Innsbruck Festival of Early Music
    Aug 2023

    • As the nymph Licori, who is adored by both shepherds, the soprano Chelsea Marilyn Zurflüh , who grew up in Switzerland, often acted in a skillfully provocative manner. Vocally, she mastered every high note.

Discography