Born in Hamburg, Okka von der Damerau studied at the Rostock Academy of Music and Theatre and at the University of Music in Freiburg. Since the 2010/11 season she has been a member of the ensemble at the Bavarian State Opera, where she has appeared as Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera) under Zubin Mehta, Waltraute and Erda (Der Ring des Nibelungen) and Charlotte (Die Soldaten) under Kirill Petrenko and Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) under Simone Young.
Recent highlights include concerts with the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Antonio Pappano and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti. She made her debut at La Scala, Milan in 2015, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2016 and at the Vienna State Opera and the Semperoper Dresden in 2017. Last year, Okka von der Damerau made her debut with the Cleveland Orchestra as Brangäne under Franz Welser-Möst and performed with the Munich Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev. She made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 2013 in Frank Castorf’s production of the Ring.
Okka von der Damerau is also a dedicated performer of song. She has been particularly praised for her recording of Frank Martin’s Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke with the Philharmonia Zurich under Fabio Luisi.
Recent and future projects include her role debuts as Ortrud (Lohengrin) in Stuttgart (January 2020), Azucena (Il trovatore) in St Gallen and at the Bavarian State Opera and Fricka (Die Walküre) at Dutch National Opera (November 2019). Okka von der Damerau’s other engagements include appearances at the Teatro Real, Madrid, the Metropolitan Opera, New York and a return to the Vienna State Opera.
In February 2006 she won the jury’s special prize at the International Song Competition for Wagnerian Voices in Venice and in 2012 received the festival prize of the Society of Friends of the Munich Opera Festival.
