Tanja Ariane Baumgartner

Tanja Ariane Baumgartner is one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of our time. Her appearances at renowned international opera houses and festivals in roles such as Fricka (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Cassandre (Les Troyens), Klytämnestra (Elektra), Nurse (Die Frau ohne Schatten) and Ortrud (Lohengrin) have established her in the top rank of dramatic mezzo-sopranos.

Her 2023/24 season began at the Vienna State Opera where she sang Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) under Philippe Jordan and Nurse under Christian Thielemann. She went on to sing Klytämnestra in Bergen and Eleonore in the world premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Die Jüdin von Toledo at the Semperoper Dresden. In June she appeared in the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Melancholy of Resistance at the Berlin State Opera. Her concert engagements have included Schoenberg’s Erwartung with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Ingo Metzmacher, Verdi’s Requiem at the Frankfurt Opera and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Joana Mallwitz at the Vienna Konzerthaus.

Highlights of past seasons include Ortrud and Fricka in Vienna, Kundry (Parsifal) at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Venus (Tannhäuser) at the Hamburg State Opera and the Zurich Opera House, Brangäne at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carmen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Judith (Bluebeard’s Castle) at the Edinburgh Festival, Clairon (Capriccio) at the Bavarian State Opera, Countess Geschwitz (Lulu) and Charlotte (Die Soldaten) at the Salzburg Festival, Agave (The Bassarids) at the Komische Oper Berlin and Kostelnička (Jenůfa) in Santiago de Chile.

From 2009 to 2020 she was a member of the ensemble of the Frankfurt Opera. Her engagements there included Eboli (Don Carlos), Azucena (Il trovatore), the Princesse de Bouillon (Adriana Lecouvreur), the title role in Schoeck’s Penthesilea, Gaea (Daphne), the Foreign Princess (Rusalka), Cornelia (Giulio Cesare), Gora in Reimann’s Medea, Jocasta (Oedipus Rex), Tigrana in Puccini’s Edgar and Charlotte (Werther). On the concert platform her engagements have included Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Salzburg Festival and with the Munich Philharmonic, Glanert’s Prague Symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and under Sebastian Weigle in Tokyo.

Tanja Ariane Baumgartner is a professor of singing at the Bern University of the Arts.