Diana Damrau (born May 31, 1971 in Günzburg an der Donau, Germany) is a coloratura soprano of the operatic stage.She began her studies with Carmen Hanganu at the Musikhochschule Würzburg then after graduating from the aforementioned conservatoire, worked in Salzburg with Hanna Ludwig.
Her first operatic engagements were in Würzburg and subsequently the Nationaltheater Mannheim and Oper Frankfurt. Since then, she has sung throughout Europe at venues including the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera New York, Covent Garden, the Bavarian State Opera, Munich and the Salzburg Festival.
She was invited to sing the title role in Antonio Salieri's 'L'Europa riconosciuta' at the re-opening of La Scala, Milan in 2003, under the baton of Riccardo Muti.Mozart's Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte) has been Damrau's most frequently performed role to-date, having been engaged to perform it in over 15 productions at houses including Covent Garden, the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Oper Frankfurt and the Bavarian State Opera, Munich.
Other coloratura roles in her repertoire include Konstanze, Blondchen, Zerbinetta, Rosina, Gilda, Norina, Europa, Olympia and Oscar. She also performs roles in the lighter lyric repertoire including Sophie, Adina, Susanna, Zaide, Gretel, Ännchenn, Marzelline, Leïla and Zdenka.
As well as opera, Damrau is a regular on the concert podium having performed Lieder repertoire at Vienna's Musikverein, the Kissinger Summer Festival, the Schubertiade, Schwarzenberg and both the Munich and Salzburg Festivals.
The soprano's concert repertoire includes Carl Orff's 'Carmina Burana', Mozart's C minor mass, Requiem and Exsultate, Jubilate as well as Handel's 'Messiah'. She has performed with such esteemed conductors as Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Adam Fischer, Dennis Russel Davies, Leonard Slatkin, Wolfgang Rennert, Andrew Parrott, Ivor Bolton, Pierre Boulez, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Jesús López Cobos, Peter Schneider and Marcello Viotti.
For 2007 her plans include the role of Aithra in Die ägyptische Helena by Richard Strauss at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Salzburg Festival. Next season will see her assuming both the role of Pamina and that of the Queen of the Night in the same run, but different performances of Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' at the Metropolitan Opera.
She is also engaged to sing Lieder recitals at Carnegie Hall, New York and La Scala, Milan.Both Damrau and Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez revealed in a joint interview on New York Radio Station WNYC, November 2006 during their run in Gioachino Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Metropolitan Opera, that they have been scheduled to perform together in several operas in the USA and Europe over the next few years including Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto in Germany and Donizetti's La fille du régiment in San Francisco.
Damrau was on the cover of the March 2007 edition of Opera News magazine. In the interview therein, she stated that she seeks to perform the bel canto roles of Donizetti's Lucia from Lucia di Lammermoor, Anna Bolena, and Elizabeth I from Roberto Devereux in the future, along with such roles as the four heroines in Jacques Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann and the title role in Massenet's Manon.
In July 2007 Diana Damrau was awarded the title Bayerische Kammersängerin in ackowledgement of her successful career with the Bayerische Staatsoper, spanning 10 roles and 75 performances in 7 years. It has been announced that she will play the role of Zerbinetta in a new production of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Summer 2008, directed by Robert Carsen with Adrianne Pieczonka in the title role.
