Austrian coloratura soprano Ilia Staple has been a member of the Vienna State Opera’s ensemble since 2024, following her impressive debut as Adele in Johann Strauss’s The Bat at that theater in 2022. In the upcoming season, she will appear as Blondchen (The Abduction from the Seraglio), Lulu (Berg/Cerha: Lulu), and Oscar (Un ballo in maschera), among other roles. She will also reprise her roles as Adele, Tebaldo in Don Carlos, the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute for Children, and Fiakermilli in Arabella for the 2025–2026 season. She also appeared as Countess Falconi in The Carnival of Rome at the Theater an der Wien as part of the Johann Strauss 2025 Vienna Festival.
From 2018-2024, she was a member of the ensemble at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich, where she demonstrated her versatility in roles such as Adele (The Bat), Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute), Olympia (The Tales of Hoffmann), Cunegunde (Candide), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Sophie (Werther), Gilda (Rigoletto) and Musetta (La bohème). At the Tyrolean Festival Erl, she appeared in the Ring des Nibelungen as Woglinde (Das Rheingold), Helmwige (Die Walküre), Waldvogel (Siegfried) and Woglinde (Götterdämmerung).
For her role debut as Eliza in a new production of My Fair Lady at the Salzburg State Theatre in autumn 2019, she was described by critics as the star of the evening. She had already made a highly successful guest appearance there in the 2018-19 season as Franziska Cagliari in Wiener Blut by Johann Strauss.
She had further operetta success at Bühne Baden in 2019 as Christel von der Post in Carl Zellers The Bird Seller, in 2018 as Bronislawa in Millöckers The Beggar Student and in 2017 as Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld. At the Lehár Festival in Bad Ischl, she appeared as Midili Hanum (The Rose of Stamboul) and Miss Edith (The Mock Marriage). She attracted attention as Maria in West Side Story and as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera at the Bad Leonfelden Musical Festival.
In addition to the opera stage, Ilia Staple can also be found regularly on the concert platform: She has performed Bach’s St John Passion, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation, Schwertsik’s Canticle of the Sun and numerous solo roles in various masses.
From 2016-2018 Ilia Staple was a member of the Upper Austrian Opera Studio at the Landestheater Linz, where she sang Despina (Così fan tutte), Sandman and Dew (Hansel and Gretel), Klärchen Hinzelmann (The White Horse Inn), Ciboletta (A Night in Venice), Rosetta (Leonce und Lena, EA), Flaminia (Il mondo della luna), among others.
The young soprano’s first engagements had already taken her to the Leipzig Opera as Gwendolen (Mein Freund Bunbury) and to the Chemnitz Opera as Papagena (The Magic Flute). At the international Brucknerfest Linz, she sang Frau Herberstorff (Alea, world premiere), Bubikopf (Der Kaiser von Atlantis) and Blonde (The Abduction from the Seraglio), as well as Bellezza (Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno), Ermengarde (Hello, Dolly) and Cis (Albert Herring) in guest productions.
Ilia Staple initially received her vocal training privately with Hildegard Krichbaumer, and later at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz in the class of Katerina Beranova.
07/2026
