Magdalena Kožená

Born in Brno, Czech Republic, in 1973, the mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená began her musical training in 1987 at the conservatory in her hometown and continued her studies with Eva Blahová in Bratislava from 1991 to 1995. Her career was launched by a series of international awards, including first prize at the 1995 Salzburg Mozart Competition. Following a year with the Vienna Volksoper, she has been working as a freelance artist since 1997. Her repertoire spans from Monteverdi to contemporary works. Kožená has appeared at the Salzburg Festival as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and as Idamante in Idomeneo, and she has sung Dorabella in Così fan tutte and Bizet’s Carmen at the Salzburg Easter Festival. Lucerne Festival named her an “artiste étoile” in the summer of 2009. She enjoys close ties with the Berlin Staatsoper, where she has appeared in such roles as Debussy’s Mélisande, Marguerite in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, Martinů’s Juliette, and Phaedra in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie. She has also been invited to perform at the Bavarian Staatsoper, the Royal Opera House in London, the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the Edinburgh and Aldeburgh festivals. In the summer of 2025, she appeared as Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and in the spring of 2026 she will return to the Berlin Staatsoper in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Magdalena Kožená has worked with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, and Sir Simon Rattle. Her recordings have earned the Echo Klassik, Gramophone, and Diapason d’or awards; most recently, in June 2025, she released the album L’extase, featuring songs by Debussy and Messiaen, with Mitsuko Uchida at the piano. She was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2003 and, in 2016, founded the Magdalena Kožená Endowment Fund to support music education in Czech schools.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 22 March 1997 with Les Musiciens du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski in sacred music works by Handel and Charpentier.

July 2025