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The German soprano (and former mezzo-soprano), Martina Welschenbach, received her musical training at the College of Music in Stuttgart and at the Guildhall School of Music in London, as well as completing the Opera Course at the Royal College of Music in London. During her student days she played various minor operatic roles at the Staatstheater in Stuttgart and made her debut at the National Theatre in Zagreb as Pamina in W.A. Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. She enhanced her vocal training by attending master-classes with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Thomas Allen and Graham Johnson. She has won grants from the Konstantin and Kid Lambert foundation and from the German Academic Exchange Service.
In 2005 Martina Welschenbach became a member of the Zürich Opera’s International Opera Studio and within weeks the young singer had been taken on as a permanent member of the ensemble, where she made her debut in various roles: as Gretel in Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, Ramiro in W.A. Mozart's La Finta giardiniera, and Feodor in Boris Godunov. She also sang parts like Tebaldo in Don Carlo, Paggio in Rigoletto, the Fisherwoman in Peter Grimes, Curra in La Forza del Destino, Annina and Flora in La Traviata, 2nd lady in Die Zauberflöte, the innkeeper’s daughter in Königskinder, Zulma in »L’italiana in Algieri, Samaritana in Francesca da Rimini and Anna in Intermezzo.
Since changing from the mezzo to the soprano fach, Martina Welschenbach has been a member of the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin since the 2008-2009 season, where she has sung Musetta in La Bohème, Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, Aennchen in Der Freischütz, Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos and Clorinda in La Cenerentola, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Micaëla in armen, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Woglinde in Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung, Karolka in Jenufa, Solveig in Peer Gynt and Liu in Turandot. In the 2012-2013 season she took the title role in Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen and played Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Martina Welschenbach has made guest appearances in Eutin, Leipzig, Gera and Stuttgart. In autumn 2010 she gave an acclaimed debut at the Opéra national de Paris as Regina in Mathis der Maler under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach. In June 2012 she gave a stunning reading of Thekla in the opera Wallenstein by Jaromir Weinberger with the Austrian Radio Orchestra under Cornelius Meister.
Martina Welschenbach has worked with such famous opera directors as Claus Michael Gruber, Jens-Daniel Herzog, Martin Kuschej, Carlo Lievi, Christof Loy, Giancarlo del Monaco and David Pountney, and with conductors like Christoph Eschenbach, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Cornelius Meister, Ingo Metzmacher, Carlo Rizzi, Donald Runnicles, Nello Santi, Peter Schneider and Franz Welser-Möst. |
