Hemdi Kfir

Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Hemdi Kfir joined the music staff of the Metropolitan Opera in 2007. Among her extensive work with young professional singers, she teaches at Juilliard and at the Israeli Opera's Young Artist Program. She is a guest language coach at Houston Grand Opera Studio and was a guest language coach at the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, at Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera and at Tokyo's Academy for the Performing Arts, GeiDai.

At the Israeli Opera, she was the language coach for Les contes d'Hoffmann, Werther, Carmen, Il trittico, Il Viaggio a Reims, and Madama Butterfly. At La Fenice, Venice, she coached Parsifal, and at the Santa Fe Opera, Mozart's La finta giardiniera, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Falstaff, and Monteverdi’s Orfeo.

Ms. Kfir joined the faculty of Joan Dornemann's International Vocal Arts Institute in 1999. She toured with the Institute in the United States and to Japan, Italy, China, France, Puerto Rico, and Canada. She taught at Music Academy of the West from 2019-2022.

She edited Nico Castel's 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 (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).

Ms. Kfir 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.