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.

Tanja Ariane Baumgartner will begin the 2023/24 season with two major roles at the Vienna State Opera: Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) under Philippe Jordan and Nurse under Christian Thielemann.

Future engagements will take her to Bergen as Klytämnestra under Kirill Petrenko, to the Semperoper Dresden as Eleonore in the world premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Die Jüdin von Toledo and to the Bavarian State Opera as the Princess (Suor Angelica). In addition, she will appear in the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Melancholy of Resistance at the Berlin State Opera.

Her concert engagements in the 2023/24 season will include Schoenberg’s Erwartung with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Ingo Metzmacher, Verdi’s Requiem under Thomas Guggeis at the Frankfurt Opera, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony under Semyon Bychkov at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Joana Mallwitz at the Vienna Konzerthaus.

Highlights of past seasons include Ortrud and Fricka at the Vienna State Opera, 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, Mary (Der fliegende Holländer) at the Bavarian State Opera, the title role of Carmen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Judith (Bluebeard’s Castle) at the Edinburgh International Festival, Clairon (Capriccio) at the Bavarian State Opera, the Theater an der Wien and at Covent Garden, 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 Tanja Ariane Baumgartner was a member of the ensemble of the Frankfurt Opera. Her engagements there included Eboli (Don Carlos), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Azucena (Il trovatore), the Princesse de Bouillon (Adriana Lecouvreur), the title role in Othmar Schoeck’s Penthesilea, Gaea (Daphne), Preziosilla (La forza del destino), the Foreign Princess (Rusalka), Cornelia (Giulio Cesare), Gora in Aribert Reimann’s Medea, Jocasta (Oedipus Rex), Tigrana in Puccini’s Edgar and Charlotte (Werther). Past concert engagements include Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Salzburg Festival and with the Munich Philharmonic in Munich and Hamburg. She also sang in Glanert’s Prague Symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, and performed in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Sebastian Weigle in Tokyo and with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Paris.

She is a Professor of Singing at the Bern University of the Arts.