Opera Ballet

After graduating in 1996, Maribor-born soprano Sabina Cvilak enrolled at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, in the class of Prof. Annemarie Zeller at the Department of Singing, where she graduated with honours in 2004. During her studies, she won several competitions and became a regular guest at the Leoben City Theatre, where she made her debut in Mozart’s opera Le nozze di Figaro, Lehár’s opera The Tsarevich, Kálmán’s Countess Maritza and Albert Lortzing’s comic opera The Wild Huntress. She came to public attention in particular after her Viennese debut in Bloch’s Macbeth, which was performed as part of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen). In the 2004/2005 season, she was a Karajan Fellow and a member of the Vienna State Opera, where she appeared in operas Daphne, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Götterdämmerung, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, Aladdin, L’elisir d’amore, etc. She appeared as Liù in Puccini’s Turandot at the Hamburg State Opera, and later also in Singapore and at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki. Her other notable roles include Micaëla from Bizet’s Carmen, Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust (she made her debut with these roles at the Maribor Opera). In the following years she won the critical acclaim as Mimì in Puccini’s La bohème, Liù in Turandot, Desdemona in Othello, Nedda in I Pagliacci, Mařenka in The Bartered Bride, and for her solo parts in Mahler’s Second and Eighth symphonies, in Johannes Brahms’ German Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem, Strauss’ Four Last Songs, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Bach’s Passions, Mozart’s masses and other vocal-instrumental works. In the 2007/2008 season and upon the invitation of the renowned tenor Plácido Domingo, she made her debut as Mimì at the National Opera in Washington, D.C., to great critical acclaim, followed by further invitations for the roles of Liù and Micaëla, which she also performed at the Los Angeles Opera. In the 2010/2011 season, she appeared as Mimì at the operas in Cologne, Palma de Mallorca, Helsinki and Hong Kong, as Desdemona at the Palm Beach Opera, as Mařenka in Valencia and as Micaëla in Pamplona. She has collaborated with numerous symphony orchestras (Philharmonic Orchestras of Monte Carlo, Dresden, Belgrade, Bratislava, Zagreb, Netherlands Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, London Symphony Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, etc. She is also a regular guest at numerous music festivals, such as the Vienna Festival, the Aix-en-Provence Festival and the Savonlinna Festival, as well as at renowned music theatres and concert venues (Vienna State Opera, Theater an der Wien, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Barbican in London, Avery Fischer Hall in New York, etc.). After a successful performance of Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle with tenor Andrea Bocelli, she is a regular accompanist on his concert tours in Asia, the UK and elsewhere in Europe. She also has a taste for more contemporary operatic repertoire, appearing as Kitty in the opera Doctor Atomic by the contemporary American composer John Adams. Her most recent stage appearances include roles such as Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Tatiana (Evgeny Onegin), the title role of Puccini’s opera Suor Angelica, Elsa von Brabant (Lohengrin), Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly), Blanche de la Force (Dialogues des carmélites), Freia (Das Rheingold), Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Gutrune (Götterdämmerung), Micaëla (Carmen), etc.