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The German soprano, Dorothea Röschmann, sang in the Fleinsburg Bach choir when she was seven yeas old. She started to study singing in 1979. Vocal training included studies with Angela Giblin, Sigrid Wagner, Annie Schoonus at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Hamburg, Barbara Schlick at the Akademie für Alte Musik in Bremen, Natalie Zimonick in Los Angeles and Thomas LoMonaco in New York. Since 1992 she has continued her studies with Vera Rosza in London.
Dorothea Röschmann was initially identified as an interpreter of early music, duly sang rarities by Antonio Caldara at the early music festivals in Innsbruck and Göttingen. She then auditioned for Salzburg. Nothing initially came of it, though she soon wound up with a contract for the Berlin Staatsoper. Röschmann soon found herself working with René Jacobs on George Frideric Handel's Semele, as well as singing a Flower Maiden in Wagner's Parsifal for Daniel Barenboim. Inevitably she broadened her repertoire to take in mainstream as well as early works and now admits that the two disciplines have cross-fertilised.
Since 1986 Dorothea Röschmann has maintained a very busy concert schedule with engagements in Europe, Canada, and the USA Among her numerous appearances, the soprano has sung with the Festival du Comminges (South-France), Holland's Utrecht Early Music Festival, Tage für Alte Musik Osnäbruck and the Dresdner Musikfestpiele (Germany). Other engagements have been at Carnegie Hall in New York, Konzerthaus and Musikverein (Vienna), and also with the Collegium Vocale, the Haifa Symphony Orchestra (Israel), Les Violons du Roy (Québec), the New York Opera Orchestra, Musica Antiqua Köln (Germany) and the Wiener Akademie (Austria). She has sung with directors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Peter Neumann, Frieder Bernius, John Eliot Gardiner and Philippe Herreweghe.
In 1992 Dorothea Röschmann made her opera debuts in the role of Barbarina in W.A. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the Wiener Akademie under the direction of Martin Haselböck and also as Zerlina in Don Giovanni in Israel. In 1993 Dorothea Röschmann sang Dorinde in G.F. Handel's Orlando with the Händelfestpiele Halle, and Dorina in A. Caldara's I Disingannati under Sigiswald Kuijken. In 1994 she ssang Arianna in G.F. Handel's Giustino at the Göttinger Händel Festival. Since the Spring of 1994, Dorothea Röschmann has been attached to the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin (National German Opera of Berlin).
Dorothea Röschmann's second audition at Salzburg took place in 1995, in the presence of conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt and director Luc Bondy, who threw her in at the deep end by casting her as Susanna. She has been in demand everywhere since, but has returned to Salzburg each year since her debut, adding Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito and Ilia in Idomeneo to her line-up of W.A. Mozart heroines. She first sang Fiordiligi in Cosi fan Tutte in Berlin, where she is no longer a company member, though she sings in guest appearances on a regular basis. In 2003 she made her Royal Opera debut in London as Pamina in a new production of Die Zauberflöte.
Dorothea Röschmann remains anxious to broaden her repertoire even further. She recently (2003) sang her first major 20th-century role, Anne Trulove in Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, in Munich, and is planning to tackle Blanche in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites. Among her pupils and/or singers who have attended her master-classes: Carmen Buchert (Soprano), Shichao Cheng (Tenor), Sophie Harr (Soprano). |
