Lauryna Bendziunaite

The soprano Lauryna Bendziunaite, a native of Lithuania, received her vocal training at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater in Vilnius and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, which awarded her the Pavarotti Prize at the end of her studies. She subsequently received instruction from Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Dennis O’Neill. Since the beginning of the 2014-15 season Bendziunaite has been a member of the Staatsoper Stuttgart ensemble, appearing there as Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème and Ännchen in Weber’s Der Freischütz and also performing such Mozart roles as Susanna in Figaro and Zerlina in Don Giovanni. In the coming season she will take part in new productions at the Staatsoper Stuttgart of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and Philippe Boesmans’ Reigen. Additional opera credits include with the Vilnius City Opera, the Royal Opera Stockholm, and the Norrlandsoperan in Umeå. As a concert singer, Bendziunaite has worked with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, the Lithuanian National Philharmonic, and the City of London Symphony Orchestra. James Gaffigan engaged her for a concert performance of Dvorák’s Rusalka with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and for Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri. Trevor Pinnock has invited her to sing not only in the present concert but in an upcoming performance of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony in the chamber version by Arnold Schoenberg as well. In her native Lithuania, Lauryna Bendziunaite, who also won first prize at the International XXI Century Art Contest, was named “Discovery of the Year” in 2011.

August 2015