Diana Damrau

The soprano Diana Damrau was born in Günzburg on the Danube in Germany and undertook her vocal training with Carmen Hanganu in Würzburg and with Hanna Ludwig in Salzburg. Following her first permanent engagements in Würzburg, Mannheim, and Frankfurt, she began her international career in 2002. She maintains a close association with the Bavarian Staatsoper, where she was named a Kammersängerin in 2007. At that company Damrau has performed such roles as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, and the four heroines in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann. She also appears regularly at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where she has performed roles central to her repertoire, such as Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Verdi’s Violetta Valéry (La traviata), Massenet’s Manon, and Mozart’s Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute). Damrau has appeared twice in the season opening production at La Scala in Milan: in the title role of Salieri’s L’Europa riconosciuta (2004) and in La traviata (2013). Additional credits have taken her to the Salzburg Festival, the Royal Opera House in London, the Vienna Staatsoper, and the Opéra National de Paris. Diana Damrau also commands an outstanding reputation as a Strauss performer and has appearedin such rarities as Die schweigsame Frau and Die ägyptische Helena. In the field of contemporary music, she took part in the world premieres of Lorin Maazel’s 1984 and Iain Bell’s A Harlot’s Progress. In the 2016-17 season Damrau will make two important role debuts: as the Countess in Mozart’s Figaro at La Scala in Milan and as Gounod’s Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera. For her recordings she has to date won two Echo Klassik Awards; in 2014 she was named Best Singer in the International Opera Awards. Diana Damrau has been awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art.

August 2016