“Vera Hiltbrunner is nothing short of excellent in matching the sharp highs of Grigori Frid’s score with the emotional depths of Sebastian Ukena‘s simple but effective direction.”
— Peter Callaghan via www.reviewsphere.org about The Diary of Anne Frank (the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016)
 

Soprano Vera Hiltbrunner, born in Bern, Switzerland, performs a variety of styles, which include classical, early, and contemporary music as well as non-classical music. She has collaborated with ensembles, theaters and festivals from all over Europe; such as Berner Symphonieorchester, Bühnen Bern, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Wien Modern, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, TNLOS Theater Nordhausen, Die Freitagsakademie, Kammeroper München, Supplements Musicaux, Ensemble Grenzklang, Opera2day and SoloVoices.
Vera is an entrepreneur, a story writer and Slam Poet, an artistic leader in managing her own creative projects.

Opera engagements in 2023/2024 included her debuts as Morgana in Alcina ( G.F. Handel), a production by
Die Freitagsakademie at the Berner Stadttheater (Bühnen Bern) and as Euridice in Orpheus und Eurydike (G.W. Gluck) at the Schlossfestspiele Sondershausen (TNLOS).
In 2021 she performed the role of Maiden 2 in the world-premiere of POPPAEA, a new opera by Michael Hersch and Stephanie Fleischmann. In 2019 and 2021 Ms. Hiltbrunner has performed the role of Despina in Così fan tutte (W. A. Mozart) at Cuvilliés-Theater in Munich with Kammeroper München.

Further operatic roles include Cupido in Diana où la vengeance de Cupido (Reinhard Keiser) with the atélier lyrique génération baroque 2018, Miles in The Turn of the Screw (Benjamin Britten) at Theater KORZO in Den Haag, Anne in The Diary of Anne Frank (Grigory Frid) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Olympia (J. Offenbach) in Dr. Miracle's last illusion by Opera2day and Adele in Die Fledermaus (J. Strauss) at the Stadsschouwburg & Philharmonie Haarlem (NL)

Vera has performed as a soloist in numerous cantata and oratorio works including: In furore iuistissimae irae (A. Vivaldi), Tra le fiamme (G. F. Händel), Carmina Burana (C. Orff), Stabat Mater (G. B. Pergolesi), Missa in Angustiis (J. Haydn), Ein Sommernachtstraum and Hör mein Bitten (F. Mendelssohn), Oratorio de Noël (Saint- Saëns) and Te Deum (Charpentier).
The soprano has collaborated with ensembles from all over Europe such as Berner Symphonieorchester, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Die Freitagsakademie, BERNVOCAL, Capella Concertata, Supplements Musicaux, Grenzklang, Terra Nova Collective, Black Forest Percussion Group, SoloVoices and Holst-Sinfonietta.

As an artistic leader, she managed her own baroque trio Ensemble La Casella - with cornettist Jedediah Allen and harpsichordist Andreas Westermann - from 2016 - 2020. The trio toured around Switzerland, Austria and The Netherlands and performed lesser known Early Italian Baroque works as well as new works by young composers such as Calliope Tsoupaki and Simon MacHale. In their project Feast and Famine 2.0, which premiered at Gare du Nord, Basel in 2019, the ensemble performed a program intertwining early music and contemporary music.


Vera Hiltbrunner completed her Masters in vocal studies at the Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Tilburg (NL) in 2016 following her Bachelors at the Hochschule für Musik Basel FHNW. Vera was a recipient of the Hans Huber-Stiftung scholarship (Basel) and a study grant from the Stiftung Lyra (Zurich).