Esther Dierkes is a scholarship holder of the “Richard-Wagner-Verband”, received the scholarship of the Catholic Study Foundation “Cusanuswerk” and was also supported by the “Da Ponte” Foundation and Yehudi-Menuhin “Live Music Now” e.V.
During her studies in the class of Hedwig Fassbender at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts Frankfurt am Main, Esther Dierkes performed at the Frankfurt Opera. She also made her debut at the Staatstheater Darmstadt and the “Festival of Young Artists” in Bayreuth.
Under the patronage of Anna Netrebko, she performed at Esterházy Castle in Eisenstadt as Gerda in the premiere of Sergei Banewitsch’s opera The Snow Queen, followed by her debut in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at the St. Margarethen Opera Festival.
In 2015 she sang the Costanza in Haydn’s L’isola disabitata at the Rheingau Music Festival.
As a concert singer she has already performed with the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Radio Philharmonic, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, the HR Symphony Orchestra, the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra and the Gürzenich Orchestra. Esther Dierkes is a regular guest at the Kölner Philharmonie, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Alte Oper Frankfurt and works with conductors such as Hartmut Haenchen, Sylvain Cambreling, Risto Joost, Marc Soustrot, Andrew Manze and Bertrand de Billy.
Since the 2017/2018 season, Esther Dierkes has been part of the ensemble of the Stuttgart State Opera, where she already sang Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel and Gretel, Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), the female lead in the world premiere of Hosokawa’s Erdbeben.Träume, Mimì (La Bohème), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Ninetta (Die Liebe der drei Orangen).
In 2019, Esther made her debut at the prestigious Glyndebourne Festival and the BBC Proms as 1. Dame in a new production of The Magic Flute.
Recently she has sung Freia (Das Rheingold), Ninetta (L’Amour des trois Oranges), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Gerhilde (Die Walküre), Rusalka in Stuttgart.
Her projects for the 2022/23 season and the following ones: Rusalka and Gutrune (Götterdämmerung) in Stuttgart, Gretchen (Faustszenen by Schumann) in a staged version at Opéra National de Montpellier, 1.Dame in Lausanne.