© Bo Huang
© Bo Huang

Adrianne Pieczonka

– World management –

Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka has enjoyed a career in opera, concert and recital spanning more than three decades.

 

She studied at the University of Western Ontario and at the University of Toronto. She made her operatic debut in 1988 with the Canadian Opera Company and joined the Vienna Volksoper in 1989. Adrianne quickly joined the Vienna State Opera in 1991 where she continues to perform as a regular guest artist.

 

Internationally acclaimed for her interpretations of Wagner, Strauss, Verdi and Puccini, she returned to the Vienna State Opera in the 2019/20 season as Ariadne and as Die Marschallin in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier.  She also appeared as Madame Lidoine in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Future performances include Leonore in Fidelio in Munich and Sieglinde in a new production of Die Walküre in Madrid directed by Robert Carsen.

 

Adrianne has brought to life such powerful women as Tosca, Senta, Chrysothemis, Sieglinde, the Marschallin, the Kaiserin, Elisabetta, and Amelia on leading opera stages in Europe, North America and Asia.

 

Her performances have taken her to the world’s leading opera stages including The Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Munich, Frankfurt, Los Angeles and La Scala, as well as at some of Europe’s finest summer festivals including Salzburg, Bayreuth, Glyndebourne and Aix-en-Provence under the direction of such conductors as James Levine, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado, Christian Thielemann, Richard Bradshaw, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Yannick Nezet-Seguin.

 

A recent career highlight was her highly acclaimed portrayal of Chrysothemis in Patrice Chereaus’s production of Strauss’ Elektra at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona not to mention numerous critical successes at the Canadian Opera Company, where she is a frequent guest. Adrianne was awarded a Dora Award for her portrayal of Sieglinde in Die Walküre in 2004.

 

Concert engagements take Adrianne Pieczonka to major concert halls in Europe and America. She recently sang Strauss’ Four Last Songs at Koerner Hall as part of Toronto Summer Music’s Festival. Her discography includes the CD “Adrianne Pieczonka sings Puccini” (Delos), which was awarded a Juno Award in 2010 and a CD of Arias by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss (Delos) 2006. Her recording of Elsa in Lohengrin under Semyon Bychov received the “Opera Award” and was named “Disc of the Year”  at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2010.

 

Adrianne Pieczonka was named Wiener Kammersängerin by the Austrian government in 2007 and was made  “Officer of the Order of Canada” in 2008. In 2010 she became a member of the Royal Society of Canada. She received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and holds honorary doctorates from her alma mater, the University of Western Ontario, and McMaster University and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

 

She has just been named “Chair in Voice” at the Glenn Gould School at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

January 2021 –  For the most recent biography, please contact Florian Schadhauser