Juliane Banse
Soprano

Few artists of her generation are as successful in so many areas with such a wide range of repertoire as soprano Juliane Banse. Her artistic breakthrough came at the age of 20 as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper Berlin in a production by Harry Kupfer, and since then she has built an operatic repertoire including the Feldmarschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, the Countess in Figaro, Fiordiligi in Così Fan Tutte, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito, Genoveva (title role), Leonore in Fidelio, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Arabella (title role), Grete in Der Ferne Klang etc.

Born in southern Germany and raised in Zürich, Banse first took lessons with Paul Steiner, later with Ruth Rohner at the Zürich Opera House, and then completed her studies with Brigitte Fassbaender and Daphne Evangelatos in Munich. She teaches as a professor at the Salzburg Mozarteum and has been the Chair of Voice at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid since 2023. She also gives masterclasses at home and abroad and is a sought-after jury member at international competitions.

In the concert field, Banse performs a wide-ranging repertoire, which has brought her together with renowned conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink, Franz Welser-Möst, Marin Alsop, Zubin Mehta and Manfred Honeck. Manfred Trojahn wrote the chamber music version of Four Women from Shakespeare for her. In 2022, she performed Heinz Holliger’s Dämmerlicht in São Paulo and Puneigä in Geneva. In February 2024, she gave a guest performance at the Cologne Philharmonie with the WDR Rundfunkchor under the direction of Christoph Poppen.

Lied recitals and chamber music have always been an essential part of Banse’s calendar. She brought her much sought-after project Winterreise to the Oxford International Song Festival in 2023, sung and danced by herself (together with dancer István Simon) and accompanied on the piano by Alexander Krichel, choreographed by Andreas Heise.

In the opera field, recent engagements include Zdenka in Strauss’ Arabella at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus in Chicago, the world première of Holliger’s opera Lunea in Zürich, the title roles in the revival of Walter Braunfels’ Jeanne d’Arc in Cologne and in the world première of Holliger’s Snow White at Zürich Opera House, Elsa von Brabant in Wagner’s Lohengrin in Nantes and Angers, as well as leading roles in Willem Jeths’ The Tell-Tale Heart at the Concertgebouw, Grigori Frid’s Diary of Anne Frank at the Theater an der Wien, and Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine at the Staatsoper Berlin and Cologne Opera. In the 2023/2024 season, she was Ellice Staverton in the world première of the chamber play Septembersonate by Manfred Trojahn under the baton of Vitali Alekseenok and directed by Johannes Erath at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.

Banse has recorded numerous award-winning CDs, two of which were awarded the ECHO Klassik: Braunfels’ Jeanne d’Arc with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Manfred Honeck, and Mahler’s Symphony No 8 with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich under the baton of David Zinman. Her discography further includes Unanswered Love with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie and Christoph Poppen, Im Arm der Liebe with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Hindemith’s Das Marienleben with Martin Helmchen, Holliger’s Luena with Christian Gerhaher on the ECM label and Hindemith’s Cardillac on BR-Klassik.