Diana Damrau |

Diana Damrau

Diana Damrau was born on May 31, 1971 in Günzburg, Bavaria, Germany. They say that her love for classical music and opera was awakened at the age of 12, after watching the film-opera La Traviata by Franco Zeffirelli with Placido Domingo and Teresa Strates in the lead roles. At the age of 15, she performed in the musical “My Fair Lady” at a festival in the neighboring town of Offingen. She received her vocal education at the Higher School of Music in Würzburg, where she was taught by the Romanian singer Carmen Hanganu, and during her studies she also studied in Salzburg with Hanna Ludwig and Edith Mathis.

After graduating from the conservatory with honors in 1995, Diana Damrau entered into a two-year contract with the theater in Würzburg, where she made her professional theatrical debut as Elisa (My Fair Lady) and her operatic debut as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro, followed by roles Annie (“The Magic Shooter”), Gretel (“Hansel and Gretel”), Marie (“The Tsar and the Carpenter”), Adele (“The Bat”), Valenciennes (“The Merry Widow”) and others. Then there were two-year contracts with the National Theater Mannheim and the Frankfurt Opera, where she performed as Gilda (Rigoletto), Oscar (Un ballo in maschera), Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos), Olympia (Tales of Hoffmann) and Queens of the Night (“Magic Flute”). In 1998/99 she appeared as the Queen of the Night as a guest soloist at the state opera houses in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and at the Bavarian Opera as Zerbinetta.

In 2000, Diana Damrau’s first performance outside of Germany took place at the Vienna State Opera as the Queen of the Night. Since 2002, the singer has been working in various theaters, in the same year she made her overseas debut with a concert in the USA, in Washington. Since then, she has performed on the world’s leading opera stages. The main stages in the formation of Damrau’s career were debuts at Covent Garden (2003, Queen of the Night), in 2004 at La Scala at the opening after the restoration of the theater in the title role in Antonio Salieri’s opera Recognized Europe, in 2005 at the Metropolitan Opera (Zerbinetta , “Ariadne auf Naxos”), in 2006 at the Salzburg Festival, an open-air concert with Placido Domingo at the Olympic Stadium in Munich in honor of the opening of the World Cup in the summer of 2006.

Diana Damrau’s operatic repertoire is very diverse. She performs parts in classical Italian, French and German operas, as well as in operas by contemporary composers. The baggage of her operatic roles reaches almost fifty and, in addition to the previously mentioned ones, includes Marceline (Fidelio, Beethoven), Leila (Pearl Diggers, Bizet), Norina (Don Pasquale, Donizetti), Adina (Love Potion, Donizetti ), Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti), Rita (Rita, Donizetti), Marguerite de Valois (Huguenots, Meyerbeer), Servilia (The Mercy of Titus, Mozart), Constanta and Blonde (The Abduction from Seraglio, Mozart), Suzanne (The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart), Pamina (The Magic Flute, Mozart), Rosina (The Barber of Seville, Rossini), Sophie (The Rosenkavalier, Strauss), Adele (The Flying mouse”, Strauss), Woglind (“Gold of the Rhine” and “Twilight of the Gods”, Wagner) and many others.

In addition to her achievements in opera, Diana Damrau has established herself as one of the finest concert performers in the classical repertoire. She performs oratorios and songs by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Robert and Clara Schumann, Meyerbeer, Brahms, Fauré, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, Debussy, Orff, Barber, regularly performs at the Berlin Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall , Golden Hall of the Vienna Philharmonic. Damrau is a regular guest of the Schubertiade, Munich, Salzburg and other festivals. Her CD with songs by Richard Strauss (Poesie) with the Munich Philharmonic was awarded the ECHO Klassik in 2011.

Diana Damrau lives in Geneva, in 2010 she married the French bass-baritone Nicolas Teste, at the end of the same year, Diana gave birth to a son, Alexander. After the birth of the child, the singer returned to the stage and continues her active career.