As a student she received numerous invitations to perform as a concert soloist in sacred works of Bach, Händel, Haydn and Mozart, and was engaged as a soloist by the Deutsche Oper Berlin as well as the opera houses in Saarbrücken, Gera und Mannheim to sing lyric coloratura roles: Cunegonde in Candide, Berg’s Lulu, Musetta in La Bohème, Madama Cortese in Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus and the Primadonna Corilla Sartinecchi in Donizetti’s Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali.

Guest appearances in Vienna, Dresden, Venice, Amsterdam, Budapest and Stuttgart followed, as well as a long-term engagement at the opera house in Basel, where Catherine Swanson was heard in roles such as Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, Gluck’s Euridice, Eurydice in Orpheé aux enfers, Morgana in Alcina, Oscar and Gretel, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Strawinsky’s Le Rossignol or Mozart’s Zaide.

Catherine Swanson has worked with many notable conductors and directors: Sylvain Cambreling, Marcello Viotti, Jun Märkl, Michael Hofstetter, Stefan Lano, David Parry, Wolfgang Bozic, Marko Letonja, Marc Piollet, Chris Alexander, Nigel Lowery, John Dew, Matthias Oldag, Herbert Wernicke, Christoph Marthaler and Claus Guth.

Also a passionate recitalist, Catherine Swanson’s Art Song repertoire consists of over 150 works of the Baroque, Classic and Romantic eras: from Purcell and the Italian Masters, Mozart, Haydn, Rossini, Mendelssohn und Schubert, to Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Verdi, Bizet, Fauré und Richard Strauss. Numerous concerts have taken her to Germany, France, England, Switzerland and the U.S.