RUXANDRA DONOSE, Mezzo-Soprano – Austria/Romania
Among the most renowned singers of her generation, Ruxandra Donose has captured critical and popular acclaim in leading opera houses and concert halls around the world, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera New York, San Francisco Opera, Opera National de Paris, Vienna State Opera, Berlin Staatsoper, Los Angeles Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro Real, Madrid, and Tokyo. She has worked with conductors such Claudio Abbado, Sergiu Celibidache, Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Mehta, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Mariss Jansons, Donald Runnicles, Vladimir Jurowski, and Pierre Boulez.
She started last season returning to the Royal Opera Covent Garden in the role of the Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos, also appearing in three concerts with the Philarmonia Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnany in Dortmud, Köln and London with Beethoven’s Symphony no 9, giving a Lied recital in Santiago de Compostella with Roger Vignoles, and singing „Das Lied von der Erde“ by Mahler with the Monte Carlo Philarmony in the Enescu Festival. She also recorded „Arminio“ by Händel , for DECCA. Later in the season, she participated at the Händel Festival in Karslruhe, presenting „Arminio“ in a new production, as well as returning to Paris, Versailles and Vienna with Händel’s „Tamerlano“. Another new Händel opera was „Rodelinda“ which she performed at the Balshoi Theatre in Moscow. Other highlights include Berlioz „Damnation de Faust“ with Dallas Symphony, and with Cleveland Symphony, as well as another new role, Donizetti’s „La Favorita“ with the National Radio Orchestra in Bucharest. She concluded last season with a much acclaimed debut as the Princess Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlo, at the Grange Park Opera festival, under the baton of Gianluca Marciano.
Recent highlights also include Dorabella Cosi fan Tutte for Los Angeles Opera, Donna Elvira for Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Tamiri in a new production of Vivaldi´s Il Farnace in Paris, Strasbourg and Mulhouse and Marguerite La Damntion de Faust in a staged production in Seattle, Nicklausse at the Metropolitan in New York, Donna Elvira and The Composer Ariadne auf Naxos for Deutsche Oper Berlin, Octavian for Bayerische Staatsoper, a new production of La Cenerentola for Opera de Nice and Carmen at Cincinnati Opera and Romanian National Opera. Donose also performed with Dmitri Hvorostovsky at the Singapore Sun Festival and with Anna Netrebko in Vienna and Moscow and garnered high acclaim for her recital recital at the Grünewald Hall in Stockholm. She has sung in concert performances of La Damnation de Faust with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich, Tokyo, San Francisco, London, and Amsterdam. She made her debut with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with Berlioz´s La mort de Cléopâtre and sang Rossini´s Stabat Mater at Royal Festival Hall with London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Past notable European engagements also include performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden ( Charlotte Werther, Concepcion L’heure espagnole, Sesto Giulio Cesare, Annio La Clemenza di Tito and Nicklausse Les Contes d’Hoffmann), Opera de Paris (Cherubino Le nozze di Figaro), the Glyndebourne Fetsival (Sesto, Cenenretola), Vienna Staatsoper (Varvara Katya Kabanova, Pierotto Linda di Chamounix, Rosina Il barbiere di Siviglia, Cherubino, Nicklausse, Dorabella Cosi fan tutte, Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel, Antigone in Enescu’s Oedipe), Salzburg Easter Festival (Fyodor Boris Godunov, conducted by Claudio Abbado), Finnish National Opera (Giovanna Seymour Anna Bolena), Dresden Semperoper (La Cenerentola and Cherubino), Teatro la Fenice (Speranza and Proserpina in Monteverdi’s Orfeo), Salzburg Festival (Isaura Tancredi), Octavian with the RAI Orchestra in Torino, and the title role in La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein with the Opéra Comique of Denmark. A regular guest singer of Deutsche Oper Berlin she recently appeared here to great success in productions of La Donna del Lago, La Cenerentola, Werther, Idomoneo, Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos.
In the US, Donose made her debut in performances of Nicklausse with San Francisco Opera in a new production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann which led to her immediate re-engagment for the title role of L’incoronazione di Poppea and Sesto. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Cherubino, a role she repeated in her debut in Japan with the Saito Kinen Festival under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, and in 2008 appeared at Los Angeles Opera in the American premiere of the opera The Fly. Further engagements include appearances at the Opera Company of Philadelphia (Rosina, Romeo, Dorabella and The Composer), Pittsburgh Opera (Charlotte), Cincinnati Opera (Mélisande Pelléas et Mélisande, Dallas Opera (Dorabella), Canadian Opera Company (Adalgisa in a new production of Norma), San Diego Opera (Idamante) and Minnesota Opera (The Composer).
A highly demanded concert singer, Donose has appeared with many leading orchestras around the world. The role of Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust has featured prominently in her concert career, with performances with the Berlin Sinfonie-Orchester, Berlin Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich, Orchestre National du Capitôle in both Toulouse and Valencia and Orchestre de Paris. She has appeared with the Dresden Staatskapelle (Dvorak’s Stabat Mater later released by Deutsche Grammophon), Orchestre de Paris (Das Lied von der Erde), Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (Mahler’s Second Symphony), Bayerische Rundfunk Orchester (El amor brujo and Ravel’s Shéhérazade), Berlin Philharmonic (Shéhérazade), the Salzburg Festival (Mozart’s Mass in C major), Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (Walton’s The Bear and d’Albert’s Die Abreise), Münchner Philharmoniker (Bach’s Mass in B minor conducted by Sergiu Celibidache and a programme of French opera arias led by Roberto Abbado), Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn (Bach’s St. John Passion) and Frankfurt Alte Oper (Bach’s St. Matthew Passion).
Her recordings include Schubert’s Ständchen for mezzo-soprano and male chorus (Philips), Dvorak’s Stabat Mater with Giuseppe Sinopoli (Deutsche Grammophon), Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Michael Halasz (Naxos), Bach’s Mass in B minor with Sergiu Celibidache, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Béla Drahos (Naxos), Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro with Bertrand de Billy (Arte Nova), La Cenerentola (DVD, Opus Arte), Oedipe (Naxos), Songs by Nicolae Bretan (Nimbus), Vivaldi´s Il Farnace (EMI/Virgin) and many others.
