After studying voice in South Africa and London, Michelle Breedt moved to Germany, where she joined of the Opera Studio in Cologne. Later she was engaged by Braunschweig State Theatre, where her collaboration with Brigitte Fassbaender as stage director and teacher began. Today she works freelance and is a regular guest at major opera houses in Germany and abroad, including Zurich Opera, Vienna State Opera, Opéra Bastille in Paris, Semperoper in Dresden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburg State Opera, in London, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Her opera repertoire includes bel canto roles such as Adalgisa and Romeo, but also roles like Charlotte, Carmen, Octavian, the Composer and Brangäne. In 2000, she made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival as Magdalena in Meistersinger and in 2006 she sang Fricka in a new production of the Ring Cycle under Christian Thielemann (available on CD). In 2008 and 2009, she returned to Bayreuth for the role of Brangäne in Tristan (available on DVD). Her repertoire also features the mezzo roles in Hector Berlioz's operas Beatrice et Benedict, La Damnation de Faust and Les Troyens. Michelle Breedt is much in demand as a concert singer and lieder recitalist, and regularly appears at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg, the Konzerthaus and the Musikverein in Vienna, at London's Wigmore Hall and at the Salzburg Festival. She has worked with conductors like Gerd Albrecht, Christoph von Dohnányi, Harnoncourt, Jansons, Ozawa, Schneider and Welser-Möst. Her extensive discography ranges from Mozart to modern music and includes revivals of works by composers ostracised during the Second World War – among them a recording of the film score to A Midsummer Night's Dream by E. W. Korngold (conductor: G. Albrecht), which won the German Critics' Prize. Michelle Breedt is a professor at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.