Hemdi Kfir

Israeli-born Hemdi Kfir, who coaches and teaches diction for singers at Juilliard, joined the music staff of the Metropolitan Opera in 2007 and has coached at the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Some of her affiliations have included Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists Vocal Academy, Washington National Opera’s 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 regularly coaches the singers of its young artist program. At La Fenice, Venice, she coached Parsifal, and at the Santa Fe Opera, she coached La finta giardiniera, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Falstaff, and Orfeo.

Kfir joined the faculty of Joan Dornemann’s IVAI in 1999, with which she toured the U.S., Japan, Italy, China, France, and Canada. Kfir 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 and 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’s in linguistics and French from Tel Aviv University and an interdisciplinary master’s in music and languages from New York University. She also studied linguistics and French at the Sorbonne, Paris.