Mihoko Fujimura

The mezzo-soprano Mihoko Fujimura comes from Gifu Prefecture in Japan and began her vocal training at the National University for Music in Tokyo. After transferring to the Munich Music Academy, where she graduated from the voice class of Josef Loibl and took master classes with Hans Hotter, she completed her studies in 1995 and began her career at Graz Opera, where she was a member of the ensemble for five years. Fujimura celebrated her international breakthrough as a Wagner singer, making her debut in 2000 as Brangäne in Tristan at the Vienna Staats-
oper, as Fricka and Waltraute in the Ring at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and in the summer of 2002 as Fricka at the Bayreuth Festival. She has performed several times at Bayreuth, appearing as Erda, Kundry, and Brangäne. Fujimura’s operatic repertoire is not limited to German repertoire: she has also performed roles by Mozart and Verdi. As a performer of contemporary music, she recently took part, in January 2016, in the premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s Fukushima opera Stilles Meer at Hamburg Staatsoper. Other credits include at the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Maggio Musicale in Florence, Bavarian Staatsoper, and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. In the concert realm Fujimura has become known especially as a Mahler performer, working with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, and Christian Thielemann. Fujimura was named Singer of the Year in Japan in 2001 and was awarded the Purple Ribbon of Honor by the Japanese government in 2014 for her artistic achievements.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 13 August 2004 as Brangäne in the second act of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde under Claudio Abbaddo.

August 2016