Mezzo-soprano Deniz Uzun has been a member of the Zurich Opera since 2016/17, appearing there in such leading roles as Hansel (Hänsel und Gretel), the Child (L’Enfant et les sortilèges), Zelim in Vivaldi’s La verità in cimento, Jacob in Leonard Evers’ Gold! and Ronja in Jörn Arnecke’s Ronja Räubertochter as well as Lucilla (La scala di seta), Ino (Semele), Sonetka (Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District), Herodias’s Page (Salome), Krista (The Makropulos Case) and Alisa (Lucia di Lammermoor). She also sang a group of Rakhmaninov songs in the ballet Anna Karenina. During the 2020/21 season, when coronavirus restrictions forced the Zurich Opera to mount an alternative programme, she gave three song recitals under the title opera goes folk.
Even while she was still a student, guest engagements took Deniz Uzun to the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus. She later appeared at the Munich Opera Festival, the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, at the Jūrmala Festival and with the Zurich Ballet at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. She made her Salzburg Festival debut in 2020 as the Third Maid in Elektra. She has won prizes at many national and international competitions, including the Federal Singing Competition in Berlin, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition and the Tenor Viñas Contest.
During the 2021/22 season Deniz Uzun will appear in Zurich as Flosshilde in Andreas Homoki’s new production of Das Rheingold, as Lola (Cavalleria rusticana) and as Meg Page (Falstaff). She will also be heard as Olga (Eugene Onegin) with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. From the start of the 2022/23 season she will join the ensemble of the Komische Oper in Berlin.
Deniz Uzun studied lieder singing at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts and later at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where her roles included Isabella (L’italiana in Algeri) and Ruggiero (Alcina). In 2015/16 she was a member of the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera, garnering praise from critics and audiences alike for her portrayal of Florence Pike in Britten’s Albert Herring.
Deniz Uzun was supported throughout her studies by a scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and later by a Georgina Joshi Fellowship. She works on vocal technique with Olyun Erdayi and Sherman Lowe, while her coaches in interpretation are Yula Levin and Carrie-Ann Matheson.
