Frederica von Stade was born on June 1, 1945. She is an American former classical singer best known for her work in opera. She also performed as a recitalist and concert artist, and she recorded more than 100 albums and videos. She is especially connected to operas by Mozart and Rossini, as well as music by French and American composers, including Jake Heggie. She has been honored as a Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, has won the Grand Prix du Disque twice, and has been nominated for a Grammy award nine times. She is widely considered one of the most respected lyric mezzo-soprano singers of her generation.

Early life

Frederica von Stade, known as Flicka to her family, friends, and fans, was born on June 1, 1945, in Somerville, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Sara Clucas von Stade and Charles Steele von Stade, a 1941 U.S. Polo Champion who was killed by a landmine while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany during World War II. Frederica spent much of her early life in Somerset County, New Jersey, a wealthy area known for hunting. She briefly lived in Greece and Italy during her mother’s short marriage to Horace Fuller, a U.S. State Department official.

Frederica began her education at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart and Holy Trinity School in Washington, D.C., where her mother worked as a secretary for the CIA. When her mother moved to Oldwick, New Jersey, Frederica transferred to Far Hills Country Day School. At this school, she played her first roles in trousers (costumes typically worn by male characters) as Amahl in Amahl and the Night Visitors and Nanki-Poo in The Mikado. During her final years of high school, she lived at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Noroton, Connecticut, a school that no longer exists. She first experienced opera at the Salzburg Festival in 1961, when her mother took her to see performances by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Christa Ludwig in Der Rosenkavalier.

With a gift from her grandfather, Frederica spent a year in Paris studying and working before starting a job as a salesgirl in the stationery department of Tiffany’s in New York City. She began her performing career by acting in summer stock theater at the Long Wharf Theater and singing in nightclubs and industrial musicals. In 1966, she visited New York’s Mannes School of Music to take a short course in sight-reading (reading music at first glance) but was encouraged to join its undergraduate music program instead. During her second year, she studied opera with Sebastian Engelberg, who remained her teacher and most important mentor until his death in 1979.

Career

In 1969, von Stade became a semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. This led to an invitation to join the Metropolitan Opera Studio. After a private audition with Sir Rudolf Bing, she signed a three-year contract as a comprimario, a type of supporting role. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on January 10, 1970, as the Third Boy in Die Zauberflöte. Over the next few years, she performed eighteen other apprentice roles, often playing minor characters like pages or maids.

In 1971, the Met allowed her to perform in San Francisco and Santa Fe as Sesto and Cherubino, respectively. However, in 1972, she chose to pursue a freelance career, seeking more challenging roles. She debuted as Cherubino in Houston and as Rosina in Washington, D.C., in 1973. That same year, she performed in Europe for the first time, receiving praise as Cherubino in productions by Giorgio Strehler in Paris and Peter Hall at Glyndebourne. She later performed in major opera houses worldwide, including Salzburg, Covent Garden, La Scala, and Vienna. Her recording of Joseph Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, made in 1973 under Leonard Bernstein, was the first in a collection of many recordings. A 1973 television broadcast of Le nozze di Figaro from Glyndebourne began her television career, which made her a familiar face globally. She performed for U.S. Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, participated in a 1992 Winter Olympics gala, and joined a televised concert in 2001 to honor victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Von Stade had a coltish body and a warm, lyric mezzo-soprano voice that could reach soprano range. She was known for playing travesti roles, where female performers take on male characters, such as Hänsel, Idamante, and Octavian. Her beauty also helped her succeed in leading lady roles, including Angelina, Charlotte, Dorabella, and Zerlina. Later in her career, she performed character parts like Despina, Geschwitz, and the Marquise de Merteuil. Her repertoire included music from the Baroque era through the Romantic period and modern styles, such as jazz and pop. She performed the U.S. premiere of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, the Met’s first performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo, the first recording of Massenet’s Cendrillon, and world premieres of operas by composers like Dominick Argento, Jake Heggie, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. She also appeared in musicals by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, reflecting her early love for musical theater, which began when she listened to her mother’s recordings of songs by George Gershwin and Jerome Kern as a child.

Although primarily a singing actress, she also performed as a concert artist, especially in the 1990s and 2000s. She often performed orchestral works by composers such as Mozart, Mahler, Berlioz, and Ravel. These pieces also appeared in her recital repertoire, alongside works by Britten, Fauré, and Schubert. She was a strong advocate for American composers and was especially fond of French mélodies. She became fluent in French as a teenager and lived in Paris for several years in her early thirties. She frequently performed with pianist Martin Katz and collaborated with composers like Dominick Argento and Jake Heggie, as well as conductors such as Claudio Abbado and James Levine.

Von Stade stopped performing full-time in 2010 but continued to make occasional appearances near her East Bay home and in other locations through the 2010s and into the 2020s. In recent years, she has participated in benefit concerts, judged singing competitions, and taught interpretation in master classes.

Personal life

Von Stade married Peter Elkus, a bass-baritone and music teacher from California, in 1973. Their daughter, Jenny, was born in 1977 and later became a clinical psychologist. Their second daughter, Lisa, was born in 1980 and works as an executive at a technology company. Von Stade and Elkus divorced in 1990, and she married Michael Gorman, a manufacturer and banker from Alameda, shortly after.

Von Stade is a practicing Roman Catholic. She has participated in many charitable programs focused on education, health, and homelessness. Her most significant contributions have supported the Young Musicians Choral Orchestra, an organization in the East Bay that helps children from low-income families by offering music lessons, academic support, and guidance to help them succeed in school and life.

In her free time, Von Stade enjoys cooking, gardening, golf, sailing, and caring for a pet dog named Sadie, who is a West Highland terrorist.

Biography and biographical movies

An official book about Frederica von Stade, titled Flicka: The Life and Music of Frederica von Stade by Richard Parlour, is planned to be released in 2026. Two important films have been made about her: Call Me Flicka (BBC and RM Munich, 1980), created by Herbert Chappell, and Flicka: A Love Letter (Paper Wings Films, 2023), directed by Brian Staufenbiel and made by Nicolle Foland and Dede Wilsey. Videos showing von Stade performing or speaking are available on YouTube at the channel "@FlickaVonStade."

Select discography

• Argento: Casa Guidi, conducted by Eiji Oue
• Berlioz: La damnation de Faust, conducted by Georg Solti
• Berlioz and Debussy: Les nuits d'été and La damoiselle élue, conducted by Seiji Ozawa
• Bernstein: Arias and Barcarolles, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas
• Bernstein: On the Town, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas
• Chris Brubeck: Convergence, conducted by Sara Jobin
• Chris Brubeck and Dave Brubeck: Across Your Dreams
• Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne Vol. 1, conducted by Antonio de Almeida
• Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne Vol. 2 and Triptyque, conducted by Antonio de Almeida
• Danielpour: Elegies, conducted by Roger Nierenberg
• Debussy: Mélodies, accompanied by Dalton Baldwin
• Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
• De Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat, conducted by André Previn
• Fauré: Mélodies, accompanied by Jean-Philippe Collard
• Fauré: L'œuvre d'orchestre, conducted by Michel Plasson
• Gordon: A Coffin in Egypt, conducted by Timothy Myers
• Joseph Haydn: La fedeltà premiata, conducted by Antal Doráti
• Joseph Haydn: Harmoniemesse, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
• Joseph Haydn: Il mondo della luna, conducted by Antal Doráti
• Heggie: Dead Man Walking (2000), conducted by Patrick Summers
• Heggie: Dead Man Walking (2011), conducted by Patrick Summers
• Heggie: The Faces of Love – The Songs of Jake Heggie, accompanied by Jake Heggie
• Heggie: Flesh & Stone, accompanied by Jake Heggie
• Heggie: Passing By – Songs by Jake Heggie, accompanied by Jake Heggie
• Heggie: Three Decembers, conducted by Patrick Summers
• Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel, conducted by John Pritchard
• Kern: Show Boat, conducted by John McGlinn
• Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Rückert Lieder and other songs, conducted by Andrew Davis
• Mahler: Symphony No. 4, conducted by Claudio Abbado
• Mahler: Symphony No. 4 and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, conducted by Yoel Levi
• Massenet: Cendrillon, conducted by Julius Rudel
• Massenet: Chérubin, conducted by Pinchas Steinberg
• Massenet: Werther, conducted by Colin Davis
• Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, conducted by Eugene Ormandy
• Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, conducted by Seiji Ozawa
• Monteverdi: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, conducted by Raymond Leppard
• Monteverdi and Cavalli: Frederica von Stade chante Monteverdi & Cavalli, conducted by Raymond Leppard
• Mozart: La clemenza di Tito, conducted by Colin Davis
• Mozart: Così fan tutte, conducted by Alain Lombard
• Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
• Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, conducted by Georg Solti
• Mozart: Waisenhausmesse, conducted by Claudio Abbado
• Mozart and Rossini: Mozart and Rossini Arias, conducted by Edo de Waart
• Offenbach: Arias and Overtures, conducted by Antonio de Almeida
• Porter: Anything Goes, conducted by John McGlinn
• Rameau: Dardanus, conducted by Raymond Leppard
• Ravel: Shéhérazade and other songs, conducted by Seiji Ozawa
• Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Sound of Music, conducted by Erich Kunzel
• Rodgers and Hart: My Funny Valentine, conducted by John McGlinn
• Rossini: Otello, conducted by Jesús López-Cobos
• Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Edo de Waart
• Thomas: Mignon, conducted by Antonio de Almeida
• Wilberg: Requiem and other works, conducted by Craig Jessop
• Various: Angel Heart, conducted by Michael Morgan
• Various: Flicka: Another Side of Frederica von Stade, conducted by Jeremy Lubbock
• Various: Frederica von Stade: French Opera Arias, conducted by John Pritchard
• Various: Frederica von Stade: Italian Opera Arias, conducted by Mario Bernardi
• Various: Frederica von Stade: Liederabend, accompanied by Martin Katz
• Various: Frederica von Stade Live!, accompanied by Martin Katz
• Various: Judith Blegen and Frederica von Stade: Songs, Arias and Duets, accompanied by Charles Wadsworth
• Various: Marilyn Horne: Divas in Song, accompanied by various
• Various: Marilyn Horne and Frederica von Stade: Lieder and Duets, accompanied by Martin Katz
• Various: Opera Stars in Concert, conducted by Anton Guadagno
• Various: Pauline Viardot and Friends, accompanied by David Harper
• Various: Puttin' on the Ritz, conducted by Erich Kunzel
• Various: A Salute to American Music, conducted by James Conlon
• Various: Simple Gifts / A Song of Thanksgiving, conducted by Joseph Silverstein
• Various: Song Recital, accompanied by Martin Katz
• Various: Voyage à Paris: Frederica von Stade, accompanied by Martin Katz

Select videography

• Bernstein: On the Town, Barbican Centre
• Dvořák: Dvořák in Prague: A Celebration, Smetana Hall
• Heggie: Great Scott, Dallas Opera
• Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel, Metropolitan Opera
• Mozart: Great Mass in C Minor, Waldsassen
• Mozart: Idomeneo, Metropolitan Opera
• Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne
• Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Metropolitan Opera
• Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Paris Opera
• Rossini: La Cenerentola, La Scala
• Rossini: The Rossini Bicentennial Birthday Gala, David Geffen Hall
• Richard Strauss: Richard Strauss Gala, Berliner Philharmonie
• Various: A Carnegie Hall Christmas Concert, Carnegie Hall
• Various: Christmas with Flicka, St Wolfgang im Salzkammergut
• Various: Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, Salt Lake City Conference Center
• Various: Glyndebourne Festival Opera: A Gala Evening, Glyndebourne
• Various: James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala, Metropolitan Opera
• Various: The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala, Metropolitan Opera
• Various: The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991, Metropolitan Opera