About this Artist
ANGELA MARIA BLASI is one of the world’s leading lyric sopranos, performing regularly with international opera houses and festivals of the world including Munich, Vienna, London, Milan, Brussels, Florence, Hamburg, Berlin, and the Metropolitan Opera.
After winning numerous voice competitions, including the Metropolitan Opera Competition in 1981, the New York-born Italian-American soprano became a contracted member of the Hessen State Theater in Wiesbaden. In 1985, Wolfgang Sawallisch offered her a contract at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where she soon became an audience favorite in leading roles such as Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Nedda (Pagliacci), Mimi (La bohème), Liu (Turandot), and Micaela (Carmen). Blasi’s successes in Munich were highlighted by her 1994 appointment by the Bavarian Ministry of Culture as Kammersängerin as well as the 2000 Munich Merkur Prize for her interpretation of Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust.
Well known as a recording artist, she is the recipient of a Grammy nomination (Best Vocal Performance) in 2004 for her interpretation of orchestral songs by Joseph Marx. Other important recordings include collaborations with Nikolaus Harnoncourt in the works of Bach and Mozart, Sir Colin Davis in the Mozart and Brahms Requiems, and Giuseppe Sinopoli in the symphonies of Mahler.
Film credits feature her in the Salzburg Landestheater audio/video production of Mozart’s Il re pastore with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, as Musetta in the Luigi Comencini/Erato filming of La bohème with José Carreras as Rodolfo and James Conlon conducting, and as a soprano soloist in many commercially released gala concerts with the Munich Opera orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta.
Recent seasons include her critically acclaimed performance of Puccini’s heroine in Robert Wilson’s Madama Butterfly with LA Opera, her performance of Mathilde in the Opera Orchestra of New York’s Carnegie Hall presentation of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, and her South American debut as Mimi in La bohème at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
Highlights of the 2008/09 season include Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony with Zubin Mehta and the Munich Philharmonic as well as orchestral songs by Joseph Marx with Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic on their North American tour.
Angela has recently relocated from Munich, Germany to her native United States and makes her home in Harrington Park, New Jersey.