Christine Schäfer was born in 1965 in Frankfurt, West Germany, and trained at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin under Ingrid Figur, Aribert Reimann and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with further coaching from Arleen Augér and Sena Jurinac. She made her US debut in 1993 as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier at San Francisco Opera and achieved a career breakthrough at the 1995 Salzburg Festival in the title role of Berg’s Lulu. She has since sung at the Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne and the Palais Garnier, and became a professor of singing at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin from 2015.

Schäfer is admired for a repertoire spanning Baroque and Mozart roles (Konstanze, Cherubino, Pamina) as well as modern and avant-garde music, including collaborations with conductor Pierre Boulez. Her recording of Schumann lieder won the 1997 Gramophone solo vocal award, and her Schubert Winterreise recording is also noted. She remains a leading interpreter of Mozart and 20th-century vocal repertoire on major international stages.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Sch%C3%A4fer