Violeta Urmana


Violeta Urmana is Lithuanian opera singer who has sung leading mezzo-soprano and soprano roles in the opera houses of Europe and North America.

Life and career

Urmana was born in Kazlų Rūda, a small town in Lithuania's Marijampolė County. She studied piano and singing at the Lithuania Academy of Music and Theater in Vilnius and continued her vocal studies in Munich at Hochschule für Musik und Theater München with. Between 1991 and 1993, she was a member the Bavarian State Opera's Opera Studio program for young singers where she studied under Astrid Varnay and would begin her stage career at the opera house.
Urmana originally sang mezzo-soprano roles but from 2001 began singing dramatic soprano roles. She sang Madeleine di Coigny in Andrea Chénier at the Vienna State Opera in 2003, Isolde in Tristan und Isolde in Rome in 2004 and Leonora in La forza del destino in London that same year.
She is married to the Italian opera singer, Alfredo Nigro. The couple met when she was singing the title role in Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide at La Scala in 2002.

Roles

Roles sung by Urmana in the course of her career include: