Okka von der Damerau

The contralto Okka von der Damerau, a native of Hamburg, studied at the Academy of Music and Theater in Rostock and at the Academy of Music in Freiburg/Breisgau; she additionally gained important experience at the Stuttgart Opera School. While still a student, she performed at the Rostock and Freiburg companies. She was a member of the Hanover Staatsoper ensemble from 2006 to 2010 and a permanent member of the Bavarian Staatsoper ensemble from 2010 to 2021. At the latter, Okka von der Damerau performed such roles as the Third Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Ulrica in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Charlotte in Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, as well as such Wagner roles as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung and Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde. Last season in Munich, she sang the title role in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus. Okka von der Damerau has made guest appearances at the Vienna Staatsoper, La Scala in Milan, the Semperoper in Dresden, Stuttgart Staatsoper, the Opéra national de Paris, the Teatro Real in Madrid, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago; additional credits include the Bayreuth Festival, where she participated in Frank Castorf’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen and in the current Ring production singing Erda among other roles. In the concert hall, she has worked with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Sir Antonio Pappano, and Kirill Petrenko, with whom she will perform Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in October. Okka von der Damerau is passionately devoted to lieder singing. Her recording of Frank Martin’s song cycle Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke with the Philharmonia Zürich under Fabio Luisi was released in 2017. Okka von der Damerau was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the International Singing Competition for Wagnerian Voices in Venice in 2006 and received the Festival Prize of the Munich Opera Festival in 2013.

Lucerne Festival debut on 23 August 2012, when she sang in Bruckner’s Te Deum with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées
under Philippe Herreweghe.

July 2023