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The Bulgarian-born German soprano, Romelia Lichtenstein (also Romelia Assenowa-Lichtenstein), grew up in Rostock and sang at the age of 9 the role of Erster Knabe in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. After an apprenticeship as children's nurse she studied vocals at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Conservatoire in Leipzig, Germany. In her first engagement at the Opera House in Chemnitz, Germany the extraordinary widerange spectrum of her soprano voice was already apparent, where she sang Rosina in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Sandrina in W.A. Mozart's Gärtnerin aus Liebe and the three female roles in Hoffmanns Erzählungen by Offenbach. She won the First Prize at the Competition of Young Opera Singers in Gera, Germany (1990) and the Mozart Prize at the International Competition Francisco Viñas in Barcelona, Spain.
The roles in operas by W.A. Mozart were an essential part of her years at the Leipzig Opera. Under the musical direction of conductors such as Michail Jurowski, Lothar Zagrosek and Stefan Soltesz she sung Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Pamina and Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, as well as Mimì in Peter Konwitschny's noteable production of Puccini's La Bohème. Her comedic talent and her work with directors such as István Szabó, John Dew and Anthony Pilavachi enabled Romelia Lichtenstein to mature into a singer of high dramatic intensity and charisma.
In 1998 Romelia Lichtenstein continued expanding her vocal abilities at the Halle Opera with an extraordinary debut as Madama Butterfly, a role for which she has been nominated as best opera singer of the year in the German magazine Opernwelt. Many demanding opera roles followed making her an impressive personality in musical theater. She created roles at the Semperoper in Dresden, Germany and at the opera houses of Graz, Wiesbaden, Weimar and Metz.
In 2006-2008, Romelina Lichtenstein, as a mentor, passed on her experience to scholarship holders of the Jürgen Ponto Foundation and since then she has been providing other advisory services. In 2012 the city of Halle (Saale) named her Kammersängerin in appreciation for her outstanding artistic merits.
Particularly significant for Romelina Lichtenstein's vocal development was the encounter with the music of George Frideric Handel. Alone during the international Handel Festivals in Halle - G.F. Handel's birthplace - she created the main and title roles in more than ten of G.F. Handel's operas. She gave the figures of Romilda in Serse, Florinda in Rodrigo, Gismonda in Ottone, the sorceress Alcina and Metella in Lucia Cernelio Silla by vocal presence and sophis-tication distinctive contour. At the Comic Opera in Berlin she sang Merab in Saul and Miriam in the operas collage Die Plagen at the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe. Her interpretation of Elisa in Tolomeo can be experienced on a complete recording of Alceste in Admeto encountered on DVD. She often works with baroque specialists such as Marcus Creed, Howard Arman, Michael Schneider and Hermann Max. As a grand interpreter and G.F. Handel protagonist she was honored in 2016 with the Handel Award in Halle.
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Romelia Lichtenstein managed the unusually lucky step of expansion into the Italian Dramatic Opera - as the opera critics widely noticed. She sang Violetta in La Traviata at the opera houses Göteborg, Bremen and Stockholm in the presence of the Swedish Royal Family. Since 2006 she has been very successful in the title roles of Bellini's Norma and of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and as Lucrezia Borgia. With devotion and brilliance she mastered the roles of Abigaile in Nabucco and Leonora in La forza del destino and in Il trovatore. Verdi was, next to G.F. Handel, the second focus in her work.
In 2016 were her role debuts Despina in W.A. Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and the title role in Adriana Lecouvreur by Francesco Cilea. She excelled as Puccini's Tosca, in a production of Verdi's Messa da Requiem, as Sélica in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine and in the title role in Offenbach's Grand Duchess of Gerolstein. In the 2019-2020 season she sings the roles of Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera and of Donna Elvira in W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni. She continues her series of G.F. Handel's works with the title role in Berenice, Regina di Egitto in 2018, Medea in Teseo in 2020, roles in production of G.F. Handels's oratorium Brockes Passion, HWV 48 in 2021, followed in 2025 by the title role in Agrippina. In the lyrical drama Manru by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Romelia Lichtenstein performed Ulana, one of the main roles, in 2022 at the Halle Opera. This performance was broadcast live on the radio and a CD was produced. With the Marschallin in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier she continued her successful career in 2023.
Romelia Lichtenstein is also in great demand as a concert singer. She has sung in works such as W.A. Mozart's Requiem, Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 14 - at concert halls like the Berliner Philharmonie, Musikverein Wien, Liederhalle Stuttgart as well as in Madrid and Warsaw. Enoch zu Guttenberg has engaged her for L.v. Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at the Music Festival of Santander and for Verdi's Requiem at the Rheingau Music Festival. In 2002 the CD „Giob” (an oratorio by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf) was awarded with the Prize of the German Record Critics. In the Clara Schumann commemorative year 2019 Romelia Lichtenstein denies the vocal part in performances of a historical concert of 1869 in Zwickau, Leipzig, Magdeburg. The evening "Sehnsuchtsorte" in 2021 with works by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn confirmed her immense talent as a song interpreter.
Among the singers who have studied with her and/or attended her master-classes: Eric Stoklossa (Tenor). |
