Katarina Dalayman, born January 25, 1963 in Stockholm, is a Swedish soprano who has found critical acclaim singing major operatic roles by composers such as Wagner, Berg, Shostakovich and Bartók, among others. In a recent interview she commented that Wagner's music "[has] always been closest to my heart, always, since I started singing".[1]
The daughter of a seamstress, who had herself previously considered a career in acting, Dalayman went on to become a student at the Stockholm Opera Conservatory. Whilst still at college, she had already sung Sieglinde (from Wagner's Die Walküre) in public. Her debut was as Amelia in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera Stockholm in 1991.
Since then, notable engagements have included Marie in Wozzeck at Stuttgart (1993), New York Met (2001) and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (2001), Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde at New York Met (2002), Kundry in Parsifal at Paris Opera (2001) and Dresden (2008), Sieglinde at Covent Garden (2005), and Brünnhilde in the Stockholm Ring Cycle (2005-8).
Future engagements include Brünnhilde in Aix en Provence (2008) and at the New York Met (2009) and at the Osterfestspiele Salzburg (2009-10); Judith (Bluebeard) in the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona (2008); Isolde at the New York Met (2008); Brünnhilde