Hemdi Kfir

Language Diction Coach

Israeli born Hemdi Kfir joined the music staff of the Metropolitan Opera in 2007, and has also coached at the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Some of her affiliations have included the Juilliard School, Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists' Vocal Academy, Washington National Opera Cafritz Young Artist Program, Music Academy of the West, and Tokyo's Academy for the Performing Arts, GeiDai. At the Israeli Opera, she was language coach for Les contes d'Hoffmann, Werther, Carmen, Il trittico, Il Viaggio a Reims, and Madama Butterfly, and she coaches regularly the singers of the Young Artist Program. At La Fenice, Venice, she coached Parsifal, and at the Santa Fe Opera, Mozart's La finta giardiniera, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Falstaff, and Orfeo. Ms. Kfir joined the faculty of Joan Dornemann's IVAI in 1999, with whom she toured in the United States and to Japan, Italy, China, France, Puerto Rico, and Canada. Hemdi edited Nico Castel's first book of Handel operas, and translated surtitles for Benvenuto Cellini, Le Coq d'Or, Don Quichotte (Gergiev's Festival at the Red Sea), Dido & Aeneas, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mothers (Israeli Opera), Der Zwerg, L'amico Fritz, La rondine, Pelléas et Mélisande, La fille du régiment, Dialogues des Carmélites and Leoncavallo's La bohème (IVAI). She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and French from Tel Aviv University, and an interdisciplinary Master of Arts in Music and Languages from New York University. In addition, she studied Linguistics and French at the Sorbonne, Paris.