Violeta Urmana

The Lithuanian artist Violeta Urmana is one of the most renowned opera singers working today, and has an exceptionally broad opera, concert and song repertory. She began her career appearing in dramatic mezzo-soprano roles such as Azucena (Il trovatore), Kundry (Parsifal), Amneris (Aida), Didon (Les Troyens), Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana), Fricka (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre), Judith (Bluebeard’s Castle), Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde), Adalgisa (Norma) and Fidès (Le Prophète), before switching to soprano and performing roles such as Amelia (Un ballo in maschera), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Leonora (La forza del destino), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Odabella (Attila), Isolde (Tristan und Isolde), Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Brünnhilde (Siegfried) and the title roles of La Gioconda, Médée, Aida, Tosca, Norma, La Wally and Ariadne auf Naxos. Since 2015 she has returned to mezzo-soprano repertory, appearing in roles that include Klytämnestra (Elektra), Herodias (Salome) and the Princess (Suor Angelica).

Violeta Urmana performs regularly at leading opera houses such as La Scala, Milan, the State Opera and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Vienna State Opera, the Paris Opéra, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the BBC Proms and the Bayreuth, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence and Edinburgh Festivals.

She has worked with conductors such as 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, Antonio Pappano, Simon Rattle, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Franz Welser-Möst and Christian Thielemann.

Violeta Urmana features on CD and DVD recordings in some of her signature roles, including Azucena, Amelia, Lady Macbeth, Kundry, La Gioconda, Eboli (Don Carlo), Aida, Leonora, Santuzza, Maddalena (Andrea Chénier) and Brünnhilde. She also appears on recordings of Verdi’s Requiem (singing both the soprano and the mezzo-soprano parts), Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Rückert Lieder, Berlioz’s Cléopâtre and on the album Puccini rediscovered.

Violeta Urmana has won awards and prizes including the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award in London, the Order of the Star of Italy and an honorary doctorate from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius. She is also an Austrian Kammersängerin and since 2016 a UNESCO Artist for Peace.

Her homeland of Lithuania has awarded her with the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas and the Commander’s Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for services to Lithuania.