Jury 2026

After an early musical education, she studied musicology along with
foreign languages, followed by a business training.
Born in Cologne, she worked for fifteen years as opera director of the
Bregenz Festival. Operating closely with the artistic directors and the
creative teams, she was responsible for selecting the singers for the
festival productions on the lake stage as well as all the other festival
venues. Susanne Schmidt started her career in the Artists & Repertoire
sector of the recording industry in New York, Hamburg and London until
she moved to the Teatro la Fenice as Head of Casting and the Artistic
Administration.
With the season 2021/22, Susanne Schmidt has started working as Casting
Director for the Opera Vlaanderen in Antwerp and Ghent.
She also makes herself available as juror to several singing competitions, e.
g. “Neue Stimmen” in Gütersloh, “Cesti Competition” in Innsbruck or “Voix
Nouvelles” in Paris.

Here is what she says about DEBUT:

“What I especially appreciate about the DEBUT competition is that singers must present themselves from many different perspectives. In addition to opera repertoire from various languages and historical periods, they also perform song repertoire and contemporary works. This allows the jury to gain a much deeper understanding of each artist. In the final round, they perform with orchestra and conductor in the concert hall, which reveals how well their voices project over an orchestra and how naturally they collaborate with instrumentalists. Equally important is the thoughtful follow-up support. The competition does not end with the final – the organisation stays connected with the young artists, follows their development and supports them with guidance and practical help.”