“Singing, interpreting and taking the audience away from their everyday lives is the greatest happiness for me. It gives me the feeling of coming home.’
Denise Seyhan’s superbly controlled, unmistakably dramatic voice captivates with its rich tonal palette and remarkable flexibility. Thanks to her great openness and infectious enthusiasm, she is able to empathise well even with unconventional staging concepts. “She is an outstanding singer and a wonderful stage performer” (Elias Grandy).
The German-Ottoman mezzo-soprano completed her training after studying singing at the Karlsruhe University of Music, initially under Gabriele Kniesel, who also guided her during her second change of vocal Fach back to the mezzo repertoire. She then spent many years working with Walter Donati and Anna Rita Esposito to master the Italian singing technique (old school), which enabled her voice to develop rapidly into the dramatic Fach.
Following her first engagements as Dorabella and Hänsel, she soon took on important dramatic roles such as the Knusperhexe (“Hänsel and Gretel”), Ulrica (“Un ballo in Maschera”), Amneris (“Aida”), Fricka (“Die Walküre” and “Das Rheingold”), Erda (“Das Rheingold”), Old Lady (“Candide”), as well as the 3rd Lady (“The Magic Flute”) and the 1st Maid (“Elektra”). She also sang this role in her first opera recording, a complete recording of Elektra, which was released in March 2025 on the classical label “Solo Musica”.
She makes guest appearances at the Badisches Staatstheater, MiR Gelsenkirchen, Pforzheim, Giessen, Heidelberg and Brandenburg, as well as in numerous independent productions.
In addition to her work as an opera singer, she performs in concerts both at home and abroad, drawing on a wide-ranging repertoire. Since 2024, she has been focusing more heavily on her concert career, and in 2025 she sang, among other works, the St John Passion, Mozart’s Requiem, the Stabat Mater (Pergolesi) and the Mass in D major (Haydn). To mark the 125th anniversary of the Hymnus Boys’ Choir, she made her debut at the Liederhalle Stuttgart, performing the alto solo in “Elijah” under the baton of Rainer Johannes Homburg.
Her schedule for 2026 is already packed with concert engagements, including K. Jenkins’ “Mass for Peace – The Armed Man”. In November 2026, she will sing her first Verdi Requiem at St. Stephan’s in Karlsruhe under the baton of Patrick Fritz-Benzing.
Other concert highlights in the past have included Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, performed at the ceremony marking 50 years of French-German friendship at the Cathédrale de Reims (France), and a concert tour with the West Saxon Symphony Orchestra through Quintana Roo, Mexico.