Barbara Dobrzanska

Short Biography

Barbara Dobrzanska was born in Krakow, Poland. She started her musical career in the orchestra of the opera in Krakow as violinist, but also studied singing at the Music Academy in Katowice and later in Stuttgart with Sylvia Geszty. After first engagements in Görlitz and Trier, she became a member of the Dortmund Opera in 2000. There, she was especially successful in the role of Louise in both of Charpentier’s operas Louise and Julien. In 2002, she joined the opera in Karlsruhe, where she quickly became a favourite with both critics and the audience. Here, she developed a large repertoire of lyric and lirico-spinto roles such as the title roles in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut and most recently Tosca, Verdi’s Luisa Miller and Dvorak’s Rusalka, Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème, Liù in Turandot, Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff, Desdemona in Otello, Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Amalia in I Masnadieri, Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, Maria in Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa, Tatiana in Jevgenij Onegin, Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen, Antonia in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, Rosalinde in Strauß’s Die Fledermaus, Margherita and Elena in Boito’s Mefistofele, Roxane in Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Maddalena in Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. Apart from Barbara Dobrzanska’s engagement at Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, she sang aria concerts with the Munich Symphonic Orchestra and appeared on the concert podium at Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, at the Vienna Musikverein and in Rome in memory of the Pope in the soprano part of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem. Guest performances on the opera stage include Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica at Graz Opera, Madama Butterfly at Budapest’s Philharmonic Hall as well as at Staatstheater Nürnberg, Manon Lescaut in Kassel and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in Kaiserslautern. She also performed in Essen, Freiburg, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Regensburg, Warsaw, Krakow, Cagliari, at Liederhalle Stuttgart and at Festspielhaus Salzburg. Barbara Dobrzanska has worked with conductors such as Leopold Hager, Jacques Delacôte, Carlo Montanaro, Pier Giorgio Morandi and Hans Wallat and shared the stage with singers like Giuseppe Giacomini, Josè Cura, Giovanna Casolla, Johan Botha, Anja Silja, Hildegard Behrens, Martha Mödl, Denyce Graves and Franz Grundheber. During the season 2010/2011 she added Ponchielli's La Gioconda in a new production in Karlsruhe to her repertoire and made her debut at Theater Bonn as Liù in Turandot. In 2011/2012 Dobrzanska gave her role debuts as Janáček’s Kat'a Kabanová in Karlsruhe and as Norma in Krefeld. Role debuts in 2012/2013 included Spontini's La Vestale and Leonora in Verdi's La forza del destino in new productions in Karlsruhe and Darmstadt. She could also be heard in a new production of Weinberg's The Passenger in Karlsruhe and as Norma in Mönchengladbach. In summer 2013 she participated in operatic concerts with the Munich Symphony Orchestra. In 2013/14 the soprano debuted the role of Amelia in Un ballo in maschera in Karlsruhe. Among her engagements in 2014/15: her role debut as Turandot in Hof and new productions of La Bohème and Falstaff in Karlsruhe. In 2015/16 the soprano will make her role debut as Lady in Verdi's Macbeth in a new production in Karlsruhe. Barbara Dobrzanska’s CD recordings include Mahler’s 8th Symphony and an operatic aria CD on which she can be heard in excerpts of Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica. May 2015