Diana Damrau [b. 1971] is an operatic soprano—her style is technically “coloratura”—from Günzberg, Germany. Although currently enjoying worldwide exposure in opera houses throughout Europe and North America, Damrau spent the first six years of her professional career [1996–2002] formally contracted to three different opera companies in her native land. These were Würzburg—the site of her 1995 debut, as Barbarina in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro—Mannheim and Frankfurt, spending two years at each of these respective venues.
Damrau’s contractual circumstances, however, did not prevent her from appearing elsewhere during this stretch. She sang her first Queen of the Night (from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte) in Berlin in 1998, and it is the role with which she is most often associated. However, it was as Zerbinetta in the Richard Strauss opera, Ariade auf Naxos that she made her first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which took place in 2005.
In addition to performing in many operas from the basic repertoire—aside from the aforementioned Mozart and Strauss roles, Damrau has appeared multiple times in several Wagner operas, plus in Rigoletto and Un ballo in maschera, both by Verdi—she has enjoyed considerable acclaim in productions that are well out of the mainstream. For example, Damrau was invited to perform the title role in Europa reconosciuta by Antonio Salieri, in honor of the 2004 reopening of Milan’s La Scala opera house after it had undergone considerable renovation. She has also sung important roles in several other fairly obscure operas, such as Rita by Gaetano Donizetti, Ascanio in Alba and Zaïde by Mozart, and 1984 by Loren Maazel.
During 2011–12, Damrau is debuting in several new roles in various European venues. In Munich this past November, she sang all four heroine roles in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and the current season also marks her first performance as the title characters in Donizetti’s Linda di Chamonix (Barcelona) and in Mignon (Geneva) by Ambroise Thomas.
Damrau sings the famous Queen of the Night aria, “Der Hölle Rache,” in a Salzburg production from 2006:




