The Austrian soprano Corina Koller has been a member of the Graz Opera ensemble since 2023 and will debut in the upcoming season 2024 as Fiordiligi in Mozart´s „Così fan tutte“. Recently she was successful in roles such as Minka in Anton Förster’s operatic rarity “The Nightingale of Gorenjska” and Princess Jadja Milewska-Palotay in “Venus in Silk” by Robert Stolz. In 2024, she made a guest appearance as Rosalinde in “The Bat” by Johann Strauss at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt.
After her success as the Electress in Carl Zeller’s “The Bird Seller” at the Lehár Festival Bad Ischl in 2023, she returned there in 2024 for Laura in Carl Millöcker’s “The Beggar Student” and Kitty in semi-concert performances of Franz Lehár’s “The Stargazer”.
In previous years Corina Koller had already attracted attention as a member of Graz Opera’s opera studio in the title role of Nico Dostal’s operetta “Clivia” and as Wellgunde and Gerhilde in Loriot’s “The Ring in one evening”.
At her role debut as Micaëla in Bizet’s “Carmen” at the opera Burg Gars 2022 Corina Koller was celebrated by the press as “discovery of the evening”. She had already gained great operetta experience and sang roles like Rosalinde in “The Bat”, Hanna Glawari in “The Merry Widow” and Sylva Varescu in “The Csardas Princess”.
At the Tyrolean Festival in 2021 she was on stage as Elsa in the family concert “Lohengrin – The Mysterious Swan Knight”, and at the Next Liberty Theatre in Graz as Maria Bellacanta in Peter Lund’s “Hillary, the Witch Goes to the Opera”.
In the context of the Styrian Autumn she gained experience with contemporary music theatre and sang in the world premieres of “Consumnia” by Sehyung Kim and the performance “L’Opra Fatale” by Lulu Obermayer and Alexandra Holtsch.
In the course of her studies, she was heard in Henry Purcell’s “King Arthur”, Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel”, Kurt Weill’s “The Silver Lake”, Ralph Benatzky’s “The White Horse Inn” and in Otto Nicolai’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” as Frau Fluth.
As a sought-after concert singer, she has performed several times at the Stefaniensaal in Graz, in Georg Friedrich Haas’ “7 Klangräume zu den unvollendeten Fragmenten des Requiems von W. A. Mozart”, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s “Lobgesang” and most recently as a soprano soloist in Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony.
The young singer has worked with conductors such as Christoph Altstaedt, Matteo Beltrami, Dirk Kaftan, Roland Kluttig, Marcus Merkel, Johannes Wildner or Bomseok Yi and directors such as Frank Hilbrich, Oliver Tambosi or Dominik Wilgenbus. She is Bayreuth Scholar of the Year 2019 and laureate of numerous competitions such as the Johannes Brahms Competition, the Otto Edelmann Competition, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Nico Dostal- or the Heinrich Strecker Competition.
Corina Koller began her artistic training in classical ballet, piano and singing at the Leoben Music School. She graduated with a Master of Arts degree in art history from the Karl-Franzens University in Graz and with honors in singing from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz.
The soprano attended master classes with Dame Emma Kirkby, Gabriele Lechner, Linda Watson, Romualdo Savastano and Cheryl Studer.
www.corinakoller.com
09/2024
