Chelsea Marilyn Zurflüh

In the 2025/26 season, Chelsea makes a sensational debut at the Royal Opera House with Pamina Die Zauberflöte, a role she debuts first at Oper Köln. She also makes her house and role debut as Marie La fille du régiment at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. She makes 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 appears regularly on the concert scene, debuting with l'Orchestre de Chambre de Genève for Ethel Smyth's Der Wald, she sings for the first time with il Pomo d'Oro for St. John Passion led by Maxim Emelyanychev and sings Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano. She returns to the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg for Fünfte Magd Elektra with Alan Gilbert and makes her UK debut for the Mozartists in a concert at Cadogan Hall.

© Andreas Fleck

Last season, Chelsea made her 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.

On the competition scene, she had major success in competitions around Europe. She is the prizewinner of the renowned 78th Concours de Genève 2024. Along with the first prize, she won nine special prices which include a role in the Grand Théâtre de Genève and several other concert possibilites. At the SWR Junge Opernstars 2025, she won first prize for Female Voice as well as the Emmerich Smola Orchestra Prize of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie.
In previous seasons, the Swiss soprano sang Gerhilde in Die Walküre in the Prague State Opera, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, in the Palace of Culture Dresden and in the Philharmonie Cologne under the baton of Kent Nagano. She also sang various concerts at prestigious venues such as the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Baroque Orchestra La Cetra under the baton of Andrea Marcon, the Stuttgart Liederhalle with Il Gusto Barocco under Jörg Halubek and the Tonhalle Zurich with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Heiko Mathias Förster. She has worked with conductors such as Alvetina Ioffe, Chiara Cattani, Kent Nagano, Riccardo Minasi, Chiara Cattani, Victorien Vanoosten, Vladimir Kiradjiev, Christoph König, Joseph Bastien, Kaspar Zehnder, Mladen Tarbuk, Franco Trinca and Christoph-Mathias Mueller.
She is prizewinner of numerous other singing competitions, including the second prize of the Otto Edelmann Competition in September 2024, the first prize at the International Haydn-Competition in Rohrau, Austria in May 2024, the second prize at the International Mozart-Competition in Salzburg in February 2023 and at the International Cesti-Competition in Innsbruck in August 2022.