Born in Frankfurt am Main, coloratura soprano Alina Wunderlin has established herself as a versatile stage artist, renowned for her exceptional vocal brilliance and stylistic range. Her repertoire spans from Renaissance and Baroque works through the French and Italian traditions to contemporary music. She attracted international attention in the summer of 2024 when she stepped in at short notice as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Glyndebourne Festival.
 

In the 2026/27 season, Alina makes her house debut at La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels (Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos), Oper Zürich (Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute), and the Tiroler Festspiele Erl as the soprano soloist in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. She returns to the Bayerische Staatsoper München as Blonde (The Abduction from the Seraglio), as well as to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin and the Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona as the Queen of the Night. A former member of the Opera Studio at Oper Köln, Alina will return to Cologne to make her role debut as Olympia in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann in a staging by Stefan Herheim. With the Wiener Symphoniker and Petr Popelka, she brings Richard Strauss’ Brentano-Lieder and arias by Josef Strauss and W. A. Mozart to Trieste, Italy. At the Glyndebourne Festival in summer 2026, she sings Zerbinetta in a new production of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, directed by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Robin Ticciati. The production will also be presented at the BBC Proms in London in August 2026.
 

In the past season, Alina made her house debut at the Theater an der Wien as Adele in a new production of Die Fledermaus (Herheim/Popelka). A song recital with her Fairy Tale programme, alongside pianist Hedwige Herchenroder and clarinetist Iris Zerdoud, took her to the RheinVokal Festival in Bad Ems. As the Queen of the Night, she appeared at the Opera Oslo, the Semperoper Dresden, and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin. On the concert stage, she performed Berg’s Lulu Suite and Kurt Weill’s cantata Der neue Orpheus at the Wiener Konzerthaus with the RSO Wien under Ingo Metzmacher. She made her role debut as Dorinda in Händel’s Orlando with Les Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski in Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées), Valencia (Palau de les Arts), and Barcelona (Liceu).
 

Earlier career highlights include Ännchen (Der Freischütz) at the Hamburg State Opera (Kriegenburg/Gamzou); Morgana (Alcina) at the Gärtnerplatztheater in München (Köpplinger/Dubrovsky); Adele (Die Fledermaus) with Les Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski at venues including the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Liceu in Barcelona, and the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville; the Wiener Symphoniker’s Prater Picnic, where Alina performed alongside Thomas Quasthoff in a programme of opera, musical theatre, and jazz; her song recital Grenzgänge at the Cologne Broadcasting House of Deutschlandfunk; Poulenc’s Gloria and Orff’s Carmina Burana at the Wiener Konzerthaus with Tobias Wögerer; Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano in Belgrade with Gabriel Feltz; several CD recordings of Brahms songs with pianist Ulrich Eisenlohr; and a recording of Carmina Burana under Paavo Järvi with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich.
 

Alongside opera and concert work, Alina is deeply devoted to art song. Her recital programmes often include rarely performed works and pieces by female composers. She frequently expands the classical repertoire with chanson or pop elements, moving effortlessly between genres.

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Alina has worked with conductors such as Marc Minkowski, Philippe Herreweghe, Petr Popelka, Paavo Järvi, Rubén Dubrovsky, Konstantin Trinks, Yoel Gamzou, and Ingo Metzmacher, as well as with stage directors including Lydia Steier, Josef E. Köpplinger, Ben Baur, Andreas Kriegenburg, Peter Konwitschny, and Stefan Herheim.

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She initially studied musicology in Frankfurt before transferring to the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts to study voice and vocal pedagogy with Rudolf Piernay and Snežana Stamenković. She received important inspiration for contemporary repertoire from Caroline Melzer. While still a student, she held scholarships from Live Music Now Yehudi Menuhin, the Richard Wagner Association in Heidelberg, and the Handel Academy in Karlsruhe. She was a finalist at the Salomon Lindberg Song Competition in Berlin and received a special award at the Concours International de Chant de Marmande.