Violeta Urmana Mezzo-soprano

Violeta Urmana was born in Vilnius, Lithuania and made her debut singing the mezzo-soprano repertoire (Eboli in Don Carlo, Azucena in Il Trovatore, Amneris in Aida, Preziosilla in La forza del destino, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Fricka in Die Walküre, Kundry in Parsifal, and Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde). In 2001 and 2002, she lent her voice to several dramatic soprano roles including Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Leonora in La forza del destino, Lady Macbeth, Odabella in Attila, the title roles in Aida, La Gioconda, Medea Tosca, Norma, Iphigénie en Tauride, Ariadne auf Naxos, as well as Brünnhilde in Siegfried, Sieglinde in Die Walküre and Isolde. Today, she continues to explore the mezzo-soprano repertoire with works such as Enescu’s Œdipe (the Sphynx), Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery (the Duenna), and Elektra (Clytaemnestra). She sings at the most prestigious international opera venues and festivals under the direction of conductors like Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Bertrand de Billy, Pierre Boulez, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, James Conlon, James Levine, Jesús López Cobos, Fabio Luisi, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Sir Simon Rattle, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Franz Welser-Möst, and Christian Thielemann. She has made several guest appearances at the Paris Opera, performing in Parsifal, Macbeth, Cavalleria rusticana, La forza del destino, La Gioconda and Tristan und Isolde (Isolde). She also sings an extensive repertoire in concert (Strauss, Mahler, Schönberg, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, Dvořák). She has recorded numerous CDs and DVDs throughout her career including ​La Gioconda, Il Trovatore, Oberto, Un bal masqué, Aida, La forza del destino, Macbeth, Don Carlo, Andrea Chénier, Parsifal, Cavalleria rusticana, Verdi’s Requiem, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Rückert-Lieder, Zemlinsky’s Maeterlinck-Lieder, Berlioz’s La Mort de Cléopâtre, Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, the Lieders of Strauss, Berg, and Liszt and Ritrovato, an album devoted to Puccini. She also sang the role of Kundry in the Tony Palmer film The Search for the Grail. During the 2019-2020 season she appeared as Azucena at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Duenna (Betrothal in a Monastery) at the Berlin Staatsoper, Clytaemnestra at the Hamburg Staatsoper, and Ulrica and Azucena at Milan’s La Scala.