Mezzo-soprano Mihoko Fujimura was born in Gifu Prefecture in Japan and began vocal studies at the Tokyo National University for Music. After transferring to the Munich Academy of Music, where she enrolled in Josef Loibl’s voice class and took master classes with Hans Hotter, she graduated in 1995 and was immediately engaged by Graz Opera, remaining a member of its ensemble for five years. As the winner of numerous vocal competitions, she was already well known to “insiders,” but Fujimura’s international breakthrough came as a Wagner singer in 2000 with her debut as Brangäne in Tristan at the Vienna Staatsoper, as Fricka and Waltraute in The Ring at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and, in the summer of 2002, once again as Fricka at the Bayreuth Festival, where she has regularly appeared ever since—most recently, for example, as Kundry in Stefan Herheim’s production of Parsifal. By no means limited to German operatic repertoire, Fujimura has also performed roles by Mozart and Verdi. She has appeared at the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Maggio Musicale in Florence, and the Bavarian Staatsoper. In the concert realm Fujimura is known above all as a Mahler interpreter and has collaborated with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Colin Davis, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniel Harding, Mariss Jansons, Fabio Luisi, Kent Nagano, Yuri Temirkanov, and Christian Thielemann. In 2001 Mihoko Fujimura was named Singer of the Year in Japan. Her performance of Brangäne in a Tristan has been released in a recording under Antonio Pappano.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 13 August 2004 as Brangäne in the second act of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, performed by the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA under Claudio Abbado.
April 2012