Her stage debut as a twenty-year-old in the role of Pamina in Harry Kupfer’s production of The Magic Flute at the Komische Oper Berlin, and her much-fêted performance as Snow White in the premiere of the opera of the same name (Schneewittchen) by Heinz Holliger in Zurich ten years later are prime examples of Juliane Banse’s outstanding artistic versatility. By now her operatic repertoire ranges from the Countess in Figaro (her debut at the Salzburg Festival), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Genoveva (title role), across Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Arabella (title role), Grete (Der ferne Klang) to Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito), Daughter in Hindemith’s Cardillac, Eva in Wagner’s Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Leonore (Fidelio). In the season of 2013/2014 she made her US opera debut at the Lyrical Opera of Chicago as Rosalinde (Fledermaus) and her debut at the MET as Zdenka (Arabella).

On the concert stage too, Ms Banse is sought after in a wide variety of roles. She has worked with numerous conductors of note, including Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink, Franz Welser-Möst, Mariss Jansons and Zubin Mehta.

Upcoming engagements take Juliane Banse to Amsterdam where she will debute as Elsa (Lohengrin), Vienna (Rosalinde in Fledermaus) and Barcelona (Fiordiligi in Cosí fan tutte). Her concert diary includes recitals in London and Vienna, chamber music with Sabine Meyer and Aleksandar Madzar in Zurich and Essen, with the Wiener Solisten-Sextet in Paris as well as orchestra concerts including Mahler’s 2. Symphony with the Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester under Sebastian Weigle in Frankfurt.

Ms Banse was born in southern Germany and grew up in Zurich. She took lessons first with Paul Steiner, and later with Ruth Rohner at the Zurich Opera House, completing her studies under Brigitte Fassbaender and Daphne Evangelatos in Munich.

Many of her CD recordings have won awards. Two recordings with Juliane Banse won the Echo Klassik: Braunfels’s Jeanne D’Arc with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck (nominated ‘first world recording of the year’) and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich under David Zinman (‘symphonic recording of the year, 19th century’). Further projects include a collection of opera arias under the title Per Amore with the German Radio Philharmonic Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the recording of Lieder Tief in der Nacht with Aleksandar Madzar, and finally the film Hunter’s Bride/Der Freischütz with the London Symphony Orchestra, Juliane Banse playing Agathe, directed by Daniel Harding.