Programme

R. Wagner (1813-1883) Wesendonck Lieder

Der Englel;

Stehe still;

Im Treibhaus;

Schmerzen;

Traeume

A. Schönberg (1874-1951) 4 Lieder op. 2

Erwartung;

Schenk Mir;

Erhebung;

Waldsonne

R. Strauss (1864-1949) Vier Letzte Lieder

Frühling;

September;

Beim Shlafhegen;

Im Abendrot

Lithuanian-born soprano Vida Mikneviciute received her masters in singing at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Kaunas. In 2003, she received the Erasmus scholarship that took the young singer to Leipzig, where she continued her studies at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Academy of Music. Between 2005 and 2007, Vida was a member of the International Opera Studio at the Zürich Opera House and she also had guest engagements with the Festival Aix-en-Provence and Theatre Basel at that time.

For three years she was engaged at the International Opera Studio of the Hamburg State Opera, where she sang Hebe and Phani (Les Indes Galantes), Pamina and Papagena (The Magic Flute), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Sandman and Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Micaëla (Carmen), Wellgunde and Freia (Das Rheingold), as well as Helmwige (Walküre).

Ms. Mikneviciute is the recipient of 1st prize and 1st audience award in the Robert Stolz ‘Viennese Operetta’ singing competition in Hamburg. She has also received the 3rd place prize in the ‘Operetta my Love’ competition in Kaunas, Lithuania. She is also a fellow of the Concorso Riccardo Zandonai in Riva del Garda, as well as of the Barenberg Bank for artistic development in Hamburg. She has also won many diplomas of ae singing competitions in Lithuania and Russia.

Between 2011 and 2020 Vida was a member of the ensemble of the State Theatre in Mainz. Here she performed the roles of  Elettra (Idomeneo),Eva (Eva), Lydia Ivanovna (Fatinitza), Natalie Princess of Oranien (The Prince of Homburg), Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte), Margherita (Mefistofele), Violetta Valéry (La Traviata), Eva in (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Margarete (Faust), Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites), Mimi (La boheme), Ursula (Mathis der Maler), Elisabeth (Don Carlo), The Great Whore (Antikrist), Sieglinde (Der Ring an einem Abend), and Amelia Grimaldi (Simon Boccanegra).

Not only is she a welcome guest at the Hamburg State Opera, where she appeared in 2012 as Freia (“Rheingold”), with a production brought to Brisbane, Australia under Simone Young, but she is also a welcome guest at the State Theatre in Kassel. In 2014 she made her debut as the Empress in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, and made her debut  at Oper Frankfurt as Sylva Varescú in E. Kálmán´s The Csárdás Princess. In 2016 she sang Irene (Rienzi) at Oper Leipzig, Helmwige (Walkür) under the baton of Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin State Opera. Four years ago she made her debut as Chrysothemis (Elektra) at the State Theatre, Kassel, and she also premiered her Elisabeth (Tannhäuser) at the Latvian National Opera in Riga. She later sang the role of Maddalena di Coigny (Andrea Chenier) at the State Theatre Kassel. She returned to the Latvian National Opera, Riga, she to sing Margarete (Faust).

In 2018 she made her debut at the State Theatre, Wiesbaden, singing Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) In October of the same year she sang Freia (Das Rheingold) at Hamburg State Opera while in January 2019 she again performed under the baton of the famous Daniel Barenboim, this time in the role of Chrysothemis (Elektra) at the Berlin State Opera. At the Latvian National Opera, Riga, she sang the role of Blanche in a new production of Dialogues des carmelites. Further collaboration with Barenboim saw her sing the role of Helmwige (Walküre) at the Berlin State Opera. She has also performed the role of Natalie Princess of Oranien (The Prince of Homburg) at the Opera Stuttgart. In February last year, she made her debut in Melbourne (Australia) at Victorian Opera singing the role of Salome (Salome), a role that was reprised at the Vienna State Opera.

She has worked with world-renowned conductors and directors such as Simone Young, Daniel Barenboim, Adam Fischer, Valery Gergiev, Alexander Joel, Eun Sun Kim, Peter Schneider,Kent Nagano, Richard Mills, Gintaras Rinkevicius and Hermann Bäumer as well as, Lorenzo Fioroni, Katharina Thalbach, Cameron Menzies, Johannes Schütz, Tilman Knabe, Harry Kupfer, Christof Nel ,Tom Ryser and Vera Nemirova.

Vida’s concert engagements have taken her to the Tonhalle, Zürich; the Laeiszhalle, Hamburg; the Finnish Gergiev Festival, Mikkeli; as well as in her home country of Lithuania. She has also sung the soprano role in Mozart’s Requiem and Coronation Mass, Brahms’s German Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 , Orff’s Carmina Burana and Verdi´s Requiem, and Beethoven´s Symphony no. 9.

Italian pianist Christian Maggio was born in Vicenza and studied at the Conservatory of Vicenza under the tuition of Rosa Matilde Molinari. After graduating with honours, he followed postgraduate study in St Petersburg, Prague, and Kraków. At this point he embarked on an extraordinary career of accompanist which started at the Statni Opera, Prague. Returning to Italy after being engaged to the Comunale di Bologna, apart from collaborating with the Teatro Comunale he studied orchestra conducting at the Academy of Pescara with Umberto Cattini, as well as at the famous Milan Conservatory. As repetiteur he has worked for As.Li.Co, Milano; the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale, Spoleto; Teatro Verdi, Padova; Teatro Sociale, Rovigo; Teatro Ventidio Basso, Ascoli; Comunale, Treviso; Opera Festival, Bassano del Grappa; and many others. He has also worked with the Opera di Paris-Massy and other theatres in Seoul, Daegu, as well as in Mainz, Germany. For many years, Christian has been a formidable presence as pianist in opera productions at the Teatru Astra, Gozo.